I have already commented enough of my views about Holy in raids since patch, but I've not said much about 5-Man. And as it seems some are struggling with them, I'll try to give a few hints about how to handle a rushing instance group. And trust me, my guildies are not stopping for more than bosses ... and most of our dpsers seem to be completely suicidal to me lately, so healing 5-Man can be intense :P
First, you should have the right spec. I advise you to read my earlier posts:
Patch 4.0.1 is going live. You are not prepared!
First impressions on 4.0.1
You should have a 31/2/3 spec with an emphasis on Holy Shock and Word of Glory. The reason for that is that they will be your main tools for any 5-Man.
The ToR style is perfect for instances, it is very rare that your tank will need more than the Beacon influx added to the occasional direct heal used to get Holy Power. Perhaps more will be need if your tank is slightly low geared or if you're into heroic HoR, but on a regular basis you'll be perfectly fine with a regular ToR build.
That means that you will be doing that, with that rough priority order:
1. Beacon of Light on your tank;
2. Use Word of Glory when you have 3 Holy Power stacks (and only 3 !), repeat if you get an Eternal Glory proc;
3. Use Holy Shock on cooldown, if only your tank is hurt, use it on him, if anyone in the group is hit, and unless your tank is in critical, heal the group member (+1 Holy Power);
4. Direct heal your tank with a Holy Light if you're not in a hurry, with a Flash of Light if you're in a hurry, with a Divine Light if he's very badly hurt (+1 Holy Power);
5. Direct heal one of the group members if your HS is on cooldown and you don't have 3 stacks of Holy Power and it's urgent.
Now if you have enough crit/haste your HS/WoG + Beacon will handle 75% of your healing. I don't think you should have any mana issues with this "rotation" as WoG is free, can sometimes be used like 3 times in a row thx to Eternal Glory, and because HS is our most efficient heal per mana skill.
If your mana is going down, use Divine Plea while running between pulls, but that should really not be an issue. Don't forget to judge for speed and a bit of mana too.
If you are still not at ease, I suggest that you test this "rotation" on yourself for a little while, it's easy to maintain once you get used to it, as any dps "rotation" (yes several paladins are saying we are now pew pew dpsers ;p).
Have fun and if you ever encounter issues, don't hesitate to comment here :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Thanks for a nice post :) I'm trying to make heads or tails from my holy healing right now, but I know it's loads of fun! I'm just curious as to why one should wait with WoG until 3 stacks, doesn't each HP give as much healing? Unlike with some other skills that use HP where each stack is worth significantly more than the next it seems like WoG is worth casting as soon as we need it?
ReplyDeleteFrom the elitist jerks preliminary Cata compendium:
ReplyDeleteWord of Glory is the Holy Power “Finisher” we’ve acquired with the Cataclysm, it’s healing power scales exponentially with each Holy Power that you currently have meaning it should mostly ever be used when you have 3 stacks. Currently Holy Power at 3 stacks heals for a margin more than a Holy Shock.
I've not tested that myself, I will and perhaps post about it if the difference makes it so very important to wait for the 3 HP stack.
Btw thx for the comment and *cheers* for your post about the patch bugs, these slow griffins and ground spell effect bugs have been plaguing our raids recently. How can you do Hallion when half your raid can't see the aoes on the ground ... we tried a lot of tweaks about that one, seems that every video card needs it own setting for them to work.
Thank you for this post, i have human paladin and really needed some advice on healing.
ReplyDelete