Flash of Light v Holy Light

I'm at lvl 56 with my pally but from what I hear once you hit lvl 60
and get a lot of +healing gear you will want to use a low level flash
of light, it will still heal decent thanks to the + healing and use
very little mana.

"Magnus, Robot Fighter." <me.RemoveThis@key.com> wrote in message
news:q7bmd2pb1su0qftvn9o7lbhmb0me8al8b8@4ax.com...
>
> Why do parties ask Pallies to use Flash of light over Holy Light?
Flash of Light uses 1/5 the mana of Holy light, and takes less time to cast.
Additionally, parties want healing, but not OVER healing, as that wastes
mana.

That said, know how to play your class and play what you know. Do not let
members of the party be the sole determination of what spells you use. Take
advice, graciously, but remember that *you* are responsible for playing and
enjoying your character.

I would suggest, however, that you macro Holy light if you plan to use it in
group, in such a way that the other healers know your target.

On 10 Aug 2006 07:18:19 -0700, "crazyfalnger" <crazyflanger.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>I'm at lvl 56 with my pally but from what I hear once you hit lvl 60
>and get a lot of +healing gear you will want to use a low level flash
>of light, it will still heal decent thanks to the + healing and use
>very little mana.

Well, my experience thus far has been at level 58:

One party and i started the instance in Tanaris..the leader starts
telling me "DONT ATTACK!! USE FLASH OF LIGHT!"....ok theres 5 of us
and we're jumping three elites. It's ridiculous to just stand back
even if I only do some 100 dps...I quit.

A party going into Stratholme only let me join when i showed them i
had Flash of Light. My experience was thus:

Ok, that guys almost dead, FOL....ok he's almost dead again FOL...ok
now someone else is almost dead...FOL...Goddamnit I can't heal
everyone at once!!

Andreas wrote:

> Ignoring crit chance, your "proper spec" consists of one single talent:
> Healing Light, which gives you an extra 12% to Holy Light and Flash of
> Light.

Since paladin crit heals refund mana, it's not really something you can
ignore. Even a very modest 10% crit rate is still a 10% boost to mana
efficiency. On top of that, Divine Favor delivers a guaranteed
critical heal every two minutes -- even in very basic healing gear that
can exceed 3k with Blessing of Light.

> Any MH paladin will be using Flash of Light to conserve mana (except in
> emergency situations). So let's look at Rank 6, which is the most
> mana-efficient heal spell Paladins have.
>
> Flash of Light(Rank 6)
> Cost: 140 mp
> Heals: 363 hp (average; 406.56 avg. with the extra 12%)
> Mana efficiency: 2.904 hp/mp;
> Time efficiency: 271.04 hp/sec (406.56 / 1.5 sec cast time)
>
> Now let's compare that to the Druid's staple spell, Healing Touch. And
> since we looked at the Paladin's maximum efficiency, we'll give Druids
> the same benefit and look at their top-rank spell, Rank 11. Since I
> added in the paladin's Healing Light bonus, I'll give the druids
> Improved Healing Touch, which reduces cast time from 3.5 seconds to
> 3.0.
>
> Healing Touch(Rank 11)
>
> Cost: 800 mp
> Heals: 2472 hp (average)
> Mana efficiency: 3.09 hp/mp
> Time efficiency: 824 hp/sec (2472 / 3 sec cast time)
>
> I'm not brilliant at math, but I think I've got all that right. And
> looking at those efficiencies, I see no conceivable way a paladin can
> compare to a druid as a main healer unless the group in question simply
> doesn't need that much healing.

Blessing of Light adds a flat 115 to every Flash of Light. That alone
boosts the paladin's mana efficiency close to 4 hp/mp.

On top of that, a Paladin who's serious about healing will gear up with
+healing gear. Druids and priests can do this as well, but a Paladin
get substantially more benefit from it than other healing classes,
because the heals themselves are so ridiculously cheap. A modest +280
healing will add 120 points to Flash of Light, boosting its mana
efficiency by almost another full point. The same amount of +healing
will add 240 points to Healing Touch, but since Healing Touch costs six
times the mana of FoL, the efficiency upgrade won't be anywhere close
to the same level.

And then on top of that, a paladin will have a much easier time
stacking +healing gear than a druid because druids only have access to
leather and cloth, whereas paladins can wear those as well as mail and
plate -- and there are some very nice piece of +healing mail and plate
available in the endgame 5-man instances.

None of this is to say that paladins are "better" healers than priests
or druids. Paladin heals are limited to a small fast one and a big
slow one. There are no instant-cast heals (save Holy Shock, which
requires talents and is horribly mana-inefficient, and Lay on Hands,
which drains all the paladin's mana), no HoTs, and no multi-target
heals. When multiple people need serious healing at once, a paladin MH
is generally going to have a hard time. So a paladin healer's options
are rather limited compared to other healing classes. But paladins are
certainly viable as main healers, and they do have advantages. Healing
aggro is almost a non-issue, and in the unlikely event a paladin MH
gets aggro, Divine Shield is superior to Fade in every respect except
cooldown.

The most important requirement is that the group has to be at least
reasonably smart about aggro management. People have to cooperate to
keep most of the damage focused on the tank -- it can't be one of those
groups where everyone picks a different target and tries to solo them.
But it's quite doable. I've solo-healed every endgame 5-man wearing
nothing better than Dire Maul blues.

Ablaize wrote:

> Pallies, can be a main healer. My example is...I throw on my healing
> armor and have +343 healing (with an additional +53 to FOL from my
> libram) and crank out 600+ FoLs in a 5-10 man run. With MC Buffs I was
> hitting 700+ FoLs with many crits for over 1000. Out of 9 healers (5
> druids, 3 priests and Me) on my last MC run, I was #2 on the healing
> meter with a priest being number 1. Difference is, I used FoL only and
> had 6.5% overheal ratio. The priest that healed more then I did was
> over 19% overhealed. For you guys that may not use meters, overhealing
> = mana wasted.

How many of your priests were shadow? Or backup healers spending their
time wanding and decursing? Were the druids feral? For that matter,
were the other healers competent players? A toon whose class is
capable of healing is not necessarily serving as a healer. And not all
healers get the job done by concentrating on restoring hitpoints. Your
example is specious.

> Now, back to the point of being a main healer. With an avg. 600 pt.
> FoL, I can heal through any 5 or 10 man instance if needed. Squishees,
> which should not be getting hit, are the only ones that will lose
> health faster then I can replace it. If they are getting hit, then my
> group is screwing up and no amount of healing will make up for
> stupidity in the long run.

Patently false, and this is at the core of my belief. Superb healing
certainly can compensate for ineptitude. Ask any healer who's pulled a
PUG's fat from the fryer. Besides which, not only will incompetence
create emergency situations, sometimes the emergencies are anticipated.
Think about the end boss and his statue wards in Uldaman, or the
zerging at the top of the staircase in Zul'farrak.

As far as I'm concerned, you've just argued my very point. A paladin
can be a main healer only in a situation where emergency heals are
scarcely needed.

Yet it may befit us to qualify what is meant by "main healer." It
can't be that a "main healer" is someone who can simply heal at all,
otherwise even rogues with bandages could technically serve as a main
healer. No, to be a *main* healer -- not just "guy with bandages," not
"backup healer" -- demands that you have a certain proficiency. The
threshold between "main healer" and "healer" -- the degree of
proficiency required -- is variable, based on the demands of the
situation.

As I said, in a situation where emergency heals are not needed, a
paladin can be a main healer. But, what's an "emergency" situation?
That is subjective, which is why this difference in belief is
irreconcilable. I apparently have stricter expectations about the
demands of a main healer role than do Paul and you.

> As to the efficiency of Paladin Healing, with Blessing of Wisdom and
> mana/5 gear I regain 72 mana per tick, + any I can get from having Seal
> of Wisdom on a target. What this translates into, is that with an avg.
> fight length of about 2 minutes in the 5/10 man runs, I can heal 22667
> pts. of damage assuming I have 0 mana regeneration. With absolutely no
> mana regeneration other then my BoW and Mana/5, I can heal an
> additional 7405 in that same 2 minute period.

Wearing your +mana/5 set does nothing to improve the performance of
your actual FoL and HL spells. Your ability to heal is limited more
(though not exclusively) by the actual ability of your spells than by
your mana pool.

At any rate, I'd prefer to limit the discussion to a class's native
abilities. All healing classes can acquire gear to modify their
performance in various ways, and attempting to draw parallels between,
for example, a Priest wearing Vestments and a Paladin gussied up in
+mana/5 or whatever distorts the comparison badly enough to make any
analysis irrelevant.

PV wrote:
> "Andreas" <isbat1 RemoveThis @yahoo.com> writes:
> >I'm not brilliant at math, but I think I've got all that right. And
> >looking at those efficiencies, I see no conceivable way a paladin can
> >compare to a druid as a main healer unless the group in question simply
> >doesn't need that much healing.
>
> Who said anything about druids? I was saying that paladins make acceptable
> main healers, and that's ALL I said. *

To me, acknowledging the concept of a "main" healer capacity
automatically invites comparison to other healing classes.

adamcsmith.DeleteThis@fastmail.us wrote:

> Since paladin crit heals refund mana, it's not really something you can
> ignore. Even a very modest 10% crit rate is still a 10% boost to mana
> efficiency. On top of that, Divine Favor delivers a guaranteed
> critical heal every two minutes -- even in very basic healing gear that
> can exceed 3k with Blessing of Light.

Should we also consider Innervate then? Or Nature's Swiftness? Or
Inner Focus? Or Omen of Clarity? Swiftmend? PW:Shield? Beyond what
point does it stop being possible to objectively discuss comparative
abilities and demand we fall back on a sort of gestalt model?

> heals. When multiple people need serious healing at once, a paladin MH
> is generally going to have a hard time. So a paladin healer's options
> are rather limited compared to other healing classes. But paladins are

This is my primary contention.

Andreas wrote:
> adamcsmith.DeleteThis@fastmail.us wrote:
>
> > Since paladin crit heals refund mana, it's not really something you can
> > ignore. Even a very modest 10% crit rate is still a 10% boost to mana
> > efficiency. On top of that, Divine Favor delivers a guaranteed
> > critical heal every two minutes -- even in very basic healing gear that
> > can exceed 3k with Blessing of Light.
>
> Should we also consider Innervate then? Or Nature's Swiftness? Or
> Inner Focus? Or Omen of Clarity? Swiftmend? PW:Shield? Beyond what
> point does it stop being possible to objectively discuss comparative
> abilities and demand we fall back on a sort of gestalt model?

You tell me. You're the one who brought up efficiency and started
churning out numbers.

> > heals. When multiple people need serious healing at once, a paladin MH
> > is generally going to have a hard time. So a paladin healer's options
> > are rather limited compared to other healing classes. But paladins are
>
> This is my primary contention.

Well, the multi-page efficiency comparison seemed to indicate
otherwise.

But sure, that's a fair concern. However, the fact is that a paladin
is a viable main healer, and even solo healer for any 5-man instance in
the game. Numerous people have proven this by simply doing it.

adamcsm....DeleteThis@fastmail.us wrote:
> Andreas wrote:
> > adamcsmith.DeleteThis@fastmail.us wrote:
> >
> > > Since paladin crit heals refund mana, it's not really something you can
> > > ignore. Even a very modest 10% crit rate is still a 10% boost to mana
> > > efficiency. On top of that, Divine Favor delivers a guaranteed
> > > critical heal every two minutes -- even in very basic healing gear that
> > > can exceed 3k with Blessing of Light.
> >
> > Should we also consider Innervate then? Or Nature's Swiftness? Or
> > Inner Focus? Or Omen of Clarity? Swiftmend? PW:Shield? Beyond what
> > point does it stop being possible to objectively discuss comparative
> > abilities and demand we fall back on a sort of gestalt model?
>
> You tell me. You're the one who brought up efficiency and started
> churning out numbers.

The entire game is about churning out numbers. WoW is a pretty, pretty
interface to a bunch of numbers fighting against other numbers. It
makes sense to me to discuss it in terms of that.

> > > heals. When multiple people need serious healing at once, a paladin MH
> > > is generally going to have a hard time. So a paladin healer's options
> > > are rather limited compared to other healing classes. But paladins are
> >
> > This is my primary contention.
>
> Well, the multi-page efficiency comparison seemed to indicate
> otherwise.

I guess I wasn't making it clear enough, then. That's what I was
trying to get at with the numbers.

> > Pallies, can be a main healer. My example is...I throw on my healing
> > armor and have +343 healing (with an additional +53 to FOL from my
> > libram) and crank out 600+ FoLs in a 5-10 man run. With MC Buffs I was
> > hitting 700+ FoLs with many crits for over 1000. Out of 9 healers (5
> > druids, 3 priests and Me) on my last MC run, I was #2 on the healing
> > meter with a priest being number 1. Difference is, I used FoL only and
> > had 6.5% overheal ratio. The priest that healed more then I did was
> > over 19% overhealed. For you guys that may not use meters, overhealing
> > = mana wasted.
>
> How many of your priests were shadow?
None
> Or backup healers spending their time wanding and decursing?
None, 4 of the other 6 Pallys were on Decurse duty
> Were the druids feral?
Can't say for sure, but there were no cats and bears running around.
> For that matter,
> were the other healers competent players? A toon whose class is
> capable of healing is not necessarily serving as a healer. And not all
> healers get the job done by concentrating on restoring hitpoints. Your
> example is specious.
Assuming they were competent, lets just say they were either slow, or
undergeared. A few would not register as they were on specific targets
only, which is why healing and damage meters are frowned on by a lot of
people. My point of bringing it up was only to show what the output of
a decently geared pally can be.
>
> > Now, back to the point of being a main healer. With an avg. 600 pt.
> > FoL, I can heal through any 5 or 10 man instance if needed. Squishees,
> > which should not be getting hit, are the only ones that will lose
> > health faster then I can replace it. If they are getting hit, then my
> > group is screwing up and no amount of healing will make up for
> > stupidity in the long run.
>
> Patently false, and this is at the core of my belief. Superb healing
> certainly can compensate for ineptitude. Ask any healer who's pulled a
> PUG's fat from the fryer. Besides which, not only will incompetence
> create emergency situations, sometimes the emergencies are anticipated.
> Think about the end boss and his statue wards in Uldaman, or the
> zerging at the top of the staircase in Zul'farrak.

Superb anything can only make up for so much retardation. I won't
argue this point as I don't PUG. But I did heal my way through Uldamon
and ZF, so your argument there is invalid or at the very least
misguided.

>
> As far as I'm concerned, you've just argued my very point. A paladin
> can be a main healer only in a situation where emergency heals are
> scarcely needed.

On the contrary, they make some of the best emergency healers. Priests
and Druids do not have a quick cast that can restore as much as a Pally
that is on healing duty. Pallys in tanking gear, would admitedly, make
poor emergency healers.

> Yet it may befit us to qualify what is meant by "main healer." It
> can't be that a "main healer" is someone who can simply heal at all,
> otherwise even rogues with bandages could technically serve as a main
> healer. No, to be a *main* healer -- not just "guy with bandages," not
> "backup healer" -- demands that you have a certain proficiency. The
> threshold between "main healer" and "healer" -- the degree of
> proficiency required -- is variable, based on the demands of the
> situation.
>
> As I said, in a situation where emergency heals are not needed, a
> paladin can be a main healer. But, what's an "emergency" situation?
> That is subjective, which is why this difference in belief is
> irreconcilable. I apparently have stricter expectations about the
> demands of a main healer role than do Paul and you.

This was just covered, no further comment needed.

> > As to the efficiency of Paladin Healing, with Blessing of Wisdom and
> > mana/5 gear I regain 72 mana per tick, + any I can get from having Seal
> > of Wisdom on a target. What this translates into, is that with an avg.
> > fight length of about 2 minutes in the 5/10 man runs, I can heal 22667
> > pts. of damage assuming I have 0 mana regeneration. With absolutely no
> > mana regeneration other then my BoW and Mana/5, I can heal an
> > additional 7405 in that same 2 minute period.
>
> Wearing your +mana/5 set does nothing to improve the performance of
> your actual FoL and HL spells. Your ability to heal is limited more
> (though not exclusively) by the actual ability of your spells than by
> your mana pool.
The point of inclusion here was not to improve the individual spell,
only having the mana to cast the spell. This comes into serious
consideration when you begin moving on to content that will require you
maintain your mana pool for fights that can last 15 minutes.

>
> At any rate, I'd prefer to limit the discussion to a class's native
> abilities. All healing classes can acquire gear to modify their
> performance in various ways, and attempting to draw parallels between,
> for example, a Priest wearing Vestments and a Paladin gussied up in
> +mana/5 or whatever distorts the comparison badly enough to make any
> analysis irrelevant.
If there were raids or quests that required you to be naked, then this
might serve some purpose. But gear is there to augment your abilities.
Otherwise, why would you wear it? It has to be taken into
consideration, especially when you are dealing with a hybrid class that
depending on gear, can tank or heal. Gear doesn't make you good, but
helps you be better at what you are good for.

Magnus, Robot Fighter. wrote:
>
> Ok, that guys almost dead, FOL....ok he's almost dead again FOL...ok
> now someone else is almost dead...FOL...Goddamnit I can't heal
> everyone at once!!

Yes, that's what healing is like in a high instance. If you only use your
large, slow-cast heals, the second person would have been dead by the time
you got to them. Healing coordination and spell choice is probably the
toughest job in the game - only main-tanking certain bosses comes close. If
you do not find yourself using *all* your different types of spells when in
a 5-man party, you are in all probability not a very experienced healer.

Yes, of course a pally can main-heal. But if you're main-healing you need
to know how, when and who to heal. It means using multiple ranks of spells
as appropriate, not only the top rank. It means knowing when to cast
short-cast heals, when to cast long-cast nukes, when to cast a
heal-over-time and when to shield.

Raiding situations are different - you can subdivide tasks as appropriate so
that (say) the MT will have two pallies casting Flash of Light to keep a
constant infusion of low-aggro healing, a priest shielding and filling in
with larger heals, and a druid casting HoTs or nuke heals as appropriate.
The MT and OT will need different healing attention, as will the melee and
ranged DPS. And don't forget to have a healer healing the other healers....


Peter

"Andreas" <isbat1.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com> writes:
>I'm not brilliant at math, but I think I've got all that right. And
>looking at those efficiencies, I see no conceivable way a paladin can
>compare to a druid as a main healer unless the group in question simply
>doesn't need that much healing.

Who said anything about druids? I was saying that paladins make acceptable
main healers, and that's ALL I said. *
--
* PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something
like corkscrews.

"Andreas" <isbat1.RemoveThis@yahoo.com> writes:
>> Who said anything about druids? I was saying that paladins make acceptable
>> main healers, and that's ALL I said. *
>
>To me, acknowledging the concept of a "main" healer capacity
>automatically invites comparison to other healing classes.

No, it means you're the main or only healer in the group, you ninny.

It seems to me there's some insecurity going on here. My pixels can beat up
your pixels, nyah nyah. *
--
* PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something
like corkscrews.