No, I’m not sure where I’m going with this title. But I don’t care, it sounds kinda cool. There, happy?
Before I start, I’d like to use this opportunity to say that I’m fully aware that some people actually read this blog. I’ll try my best to not include names as much as possible. If somebody does recognize him/her self in one of my posts, please be aware that I’m trying not to attack anyone in particular. I may use certain people as an example, but I’m in no way calling somebody on their mistakes, which may not even be their own fault.
That said, I’ll get to the point of this post now.
Recently, with all the guild and raid drama going on, I’ve been in doubt on a number of things. I’ve already posted on the fact that I’m considering switching guilds. My doubt on this issue grows daily, but I’m waiting to see how things develop with the current guild I’m in. There are a couple of raids planned that I’d really like to go to and a lot depends on how I feel after those raids. I’m kind of expecting lots of failures though. I’ll probably post about it afterwards, so expect something here by the end of the week.
I’ve also started doubting my favorite Flash of Light spec. Well, not spec so much, as I’m 51/20/0 specced, but more my own gear, gems and healing focus. Kurn helped me pick some gear pieces to get, and I’m working on that. I’ve stalled on replacing gems though. I was going to get all my gems replaced by +23 spellpower (or +39 spellpower, as I’m a JC) but now, I’m in doubt. My primary healing focus has always been Flash of Light. During the lower levels, it’s really the only viable healing spell to focus on if you don’t want to run OOM all the time. Starting at level 80, doing heroic 5 mans and some starting raids, Flash of Light still beats the crap out of every encounter. Anyone stating otherwise is lying in my opinion. Sure, Holy Light can be very viable and powerful, but if it’s not needed, why say that Flash of Light “sucks”? I’ve had some discussions on this with a few Holy paladins and most aren’t even considering Flash of Light viable, for anything. Because, Holy Light fixes all, right?
Wrong. Especially in the lower gear levels, where you can still struggle with mana, Holy Light can be unnecessary overkill, depleting your mana way too quickly. You know how it is in heroics nowadays. Overgeared people want to get it over with as soon as possible, because they’re only there for the Frost emblems. This can cause trouble with lower geared people who arent able to keep up the pace. Of course, tanks and healers in particular.
On the other hand, the reason I’m writing this post is precisely because of the difference between a Holy Light focused paladin and a Flash of Light focused paladin. Right now, I’ve focused on Flash of Light and am trying to gear and gem for it. Most Holy paladins in my guild also focus on Flash of Light, but they use a weird combination of a Retribution subspec and full Intellect gems. I’ve also seen some weird Glyph combinations. I’ve raided with most of them and they actually do only cast Flash of Light. I remember some Recount stats scaring the heck out of me after a wipe. I knew that particular Holy paladin gemmed full Intellect and as such, I was assuming he was focusing on casting Holy Light. After some heavy tank damage, tank death and a resulting wipe… Recount showed he didn’t cast Holy Light even once! I’ve asked him about it afterwards and he admitted that he only cast Flash of Light, because of the faster cast time.
Now, these Holy paladins may not really have a clue, but that did scare me. One of them now gems correctly and still focuses on Flash of Light, but he now at least knows where he can get relevant information. He got a clue. The rest though, are a whole different story. I’ll admit that these are casual raiders, but still. They’re pushing for progression, at least they pretend to. They fail numerous times, but as the ICC buff increases and they wipe often enough, they manage to down one more boss once in a while. Not that they’re actually logging anything, or even paying attention to what went wrong. They just try again, exactly the same as they did it the last time. And maybe they’ll have more luck. Which they sometimes do. Very frustrating, actually.
As said, I’m now doubting my focus on Flash of Light. I really feel that I need to carry the other healers through the content I’m doing. I’m not capable to do that as I am now and I don’t want to. Just like I don’t want the other healers to feel like they’re carrying me. I want to carry my own weight, without relying on other healers except for the raid healing. In Light of this (you see what I did there?) I’ve started doubting my current focus before it’s too late. Too late, because I’ve already started swapping out gems for spellpower gems. If I decide to switch, I’ll need to do it before I waste too much gold or time on more spellpower gems.
I already have a good spec to use with a Holy Light focus, and I can swap out the glyphs without a problem. Getting the Libram of Renewal should be no problem either. I’m not too sure about what more I would need to change in order to fully switch to a Holy Light focus, but a quick read through Kurn’s Holy How-To’s should help. I’m far too tired for that right now though, but I’ll get to it when I finally decide whether or not to switch.
I’ve wasted far too many words on this already. But I’ll keep posting updates about it anyway. Right now, it’s time for bed.
The Failadin 
Hi Kaboomski – if you’ll allow it, I’ll weigh in with my thoughts here.
First – on the guild situation. If you’re not happy, pull the plug so fast that the only sound they’ll hear is the bang of air filling the space vacated by your departure. In my experience, unless you have a lot of RL friends there, you’ll find something that fits your needs elsewhere.
Second – FoL vs HL. I’ve weighed in on this at my blog more than once, but here’s the 25 cent version. FoL cannot compete with HL at the end-game progression level. Now, I mean that specifically. I ran a FoL build through the 10% ICC buff without any issues. Full SP gems (none of this mix/match stuff – you look like a chirstmas tree), SP trinkets, etc. It worked great until we started doing heroic content. Then it just wasn’t enough.
In dungeons, 5 mans, heroic-5s, outgeared content, heck – ICC 10/25 on normal – you should be fine. The problem with a FoL build Paladin (IMO) is that you’re trying to cover raid healing with a single target heal.
Spec – part of the problem with using a 51/20/0 build for FoL is that when you switch out to SP gems you’re losing a ton of crit. http://paladindivineplea.blogspot.com/2010/03/int-vs-sp-and-hl-vs-fol-let.html Basically the only way you can make a FoL only build work is to reach the following.
1) 676 Haste. Without that your FoLs aren’t at the 1sec GCD and you’re going to start falling behind.
2) A metric poop ton of crit. This is why you need to be 51/x/18+2 to make a FoL build work. Your crit (looking at your armory) is around 34% for holy. That’s not going to cut it.
3) More SP than Oprah. You’re only getting a 1:1 coefficent for your FoLs – so every point of SP is just 1 point of FoL healing. Stack that stuff like it’s gold.
Don’t worry about MP5. The return from replenishment will cover you if you stick with FOL.
Finally, (sorry for the Wall o Text), you need to have at least one Paladin focusing on HL. Your gear setup now would be great (if you went back to INT gems/glyphs/trinkets/libram) for a full on HL build. More haste wouldn’t hurt you by any means though.
Keep your chin up – and tell them to bugger off if you’re not happy. The xpac is coming, and there’s far too much fun to be had to be sitting in an environment you don’t like.
I think you’re right, actually. I know my gear/gems are not up to par to really run with FoL. In fact, I’m still in the process of swapping all my gems to SP gems. But before I’ve swapped them all out, if I really want to switch to a full HL spec, then I don’t want to swap anymore gems until I know for sure what I’ll do. I know what I’m doing wrong for a FoL spec, it’s just that I haven’t had the time or gold yet to complete the transition from crap gear/gems to full SP.
The guild situation is driving me up the wall tbh. There are at least 4 good friends in there, we sort of all switched to this guild together (with a few days interval, granted). Now, me thinking of switching again, leaves me with a feeling of guilt.
Also, you’re right about having to run with at least one HL pally. The problem is, I run with multiple failing healers. There are maybe 2 healers in the guild who actually know what they’re doing. That’s one HL pally and one resto druid. The HL pally is reserved for the progression runs, so I can’t run with him. The resto druid (my wife, actually) is starting to get annoyed by the guild as well and is having trouble carrying them through every fail run. As such, I don’t feel I’m pulling the weight that I could. That’s why I’m considering switching gems yet again, but this time go full Intellect and switch to HL all the way.
I have some gear upgrades on the way as well, that should help my haste up. As soon as I have the emblems to replace my headpiece with the T10 one, I’ll be able to swap out my gloves for ones with haste (I have those ready in my bank). I can also swap my shoulders for the T9 ones (I can even upgrade them with a token from ToTC 25) so I’ll have even more haste. I’m also frantically farming for gold so I can have the gems ready by the time I need them.
Sounds like a perfect opportunity to take your wife and bail. There are plenty of guilds recruiting healers these days.
Best way to get gems – Wintergrasp and PvP. Even if you don’t like PvP – it’s 10k honor for any epic gem. Each PvP victory is probably 3k+ honor. If you just hate PvP – then running randoms will net you an epic gem every 4 runs or so. Figure you’ll get 5 badges per run, unless you get HoS and they only do 2 bosses. Either way, your profit is up.
Doing dalies (if that’s how you’re farming) is what, 13g per daily? I think epic gems are about 130g or so on my server – so that’s 10 per gem. I guess it’s just where you like to spend your time.