Explaining the Flash of Light Build for Holy Paladins
Using a Flash of Light build is not for someone looking for the safe, easy way to do things. A Flash of Light build is for those holy warriors looking to absolutely maximize their Holy paladin’s full potential. Don’t get me wrong, a Holy Light build will work great in many cases. However, read on while I explain some of its drawbacks and some of the benefits of a FoL build. In this post, I’ll show you what you first need for a FoL build, when you SHOULD use Holy Light, what the drawbacks of a HL build are, and what exactly you need to do to pull off a FoL build, including how you heal and what gear and spec you will need.
There are a few things you must first have before you can successfully use a Flash of Light build in difficult content.
To use a FoL build in difficult content you must have:
- low latency,
- fast reaction times,
- the ability to simultaneously watch multiple health bars at once (tank and raid),
- the ability to instantly triage targets (including knowing when not to heal at all and let other healers do their job),
- great environmental awareness (which helps a lot with the triage skill),
- the ability to heal many different targets (many clicks per minute) without any mistakes or mis-clicks and
- other healers that will help heal the tank.
People who are very good Starcraft players will probably be very good Flash of Light healers. A Flash of Light build is not for everyone. If you don’t have all of the above, it may be hard for you to pull off a Flash of Light build in difficult content. It is easier to be a great paladin healer using Holy Light and Intellect. However, if you want to be an exception paladin healer, you need to be able to do all of the above while using both a Flash of Light and Holy Light build. This applies to any level of content. It doesn’t matter if you are in Naxxramas or Icecrown Citadel. Both builds can work in difficult content if you have all of the above attributes regardless of what your gear level is. Let me explain why a Flash of Light build can be better than a Holy Light build if you (and your raid) can pull it off.
How does a FoL build work?
Here are the questions everyone is asking:
Is it really possible to do a Flash of Light build? Can Flash of Light provide the same throughput as Holy Light? How can Flash of Light alone keep up a tank?
The answers are Yes, No, and It can’t (in very difficult content). The strength of a Flash of Light build is that it distributes the responsibility of tank healing over many different healers, leading to more stable tank health and a lower chance of wipes due to the mistake or incapacitation of a single healer. At the same time, it provides critical emergency heals for low health members of the raid.
In very difficult content, every single life matters. A Holy Paladin is uniquely situated to deal with the most deadly raid damage that occurs in difficult content. Most healer and dps deaths in ICC occur not from AoE damage but from focused single-target damage on a healer or dps. Paladins have the strongest, quickest, and most efficient single-target heals in the game. While HoTs, shields, and pre-heals are great for predictable damage (like tank damage), they aren’t as suited for healing a raid member taking immediate burst damage. For that, you need the quick, strong and direct heals that a paladin can provide.
While a tank death will immediately cause a wipe, ANY death in hard content will also eventually cause a wipe. Therefore, a Flash of Light build is the optimal way to focus quick, strong heals exactly on those people who need it the most (while also healing the tank). Its an awesome build to have during many high raid damage, high mobility encounters (and especially Varimathras) and can even work very well in high tank damage situations if done properly.
When is Holy Light required?
Holy Light is almost always used best on a tank. Tanks are always taking constant steady, predictable, but high damage and they have higher corresponding health pools to deal with that damage. Therefore, using Holy Light on them makes sense to quickly fill up that large health pool.
On the other hand, it usually does not make sense to use Holy Light on a dps or a healer (except for the purpose of Beaconing it to the tank). Raid damage is always smaller and more unpredictable than tank damage, meaning a Holy Light will take more time to hit the target and the amount of healing it will do is not usually necessary to get them out of the danger zone. Raid damage often needs to be healed immediately in order to save the target, unlike tank damage which is more predictable. There are also more raid targets taking the damage and they all need some healing as opposed to one target needing a lot of healing. The damage often comes in bursts lasting a few seconds, meaning the target needs quicker smaller heals rather than slower larger heals to quickly re-fill their smaller health bar multiple times. Lastly, there are likely other raid healers responding to the same situation meaning a large Holy Light heal is probably not needed. The shorter cast time, smaller healing, and more efficiency of Holy Shock and Flash of Light better support the healing of multiple raid targets.
The only exception to this is the Glyph of Holy Light, which does an AoE heal around the target. The glyph can do quite a lot of healing depending on the encounter, but this is all “bonus” healing that is used to help fill the bars to full (similiar to Judgement of Light). It is not meant as an emergency heal to keep someone alive and is not meant as the only healing a person receives. It is only useful on grouped targets, unlike FoL and HS which are always equally effective despite raid positioning. You can’t raid heal with the glyph alone.
So, does that mean that the only time you should use a FoL build is if you are a raid healer?
The answer is… not exactly. The fact is, due to Beacon, every Holy Paladin looking to optimize themselves should be a raid healer on most encounters and raid healing is done best with a FoL build. This especially includes any encounter where the tanks swap aggro, where only one tank is taking damage at a time, or where tank damage is lower than usual. While a HL build is very effective on encounters where two tanks are taking a ton of damage at the same time, there are many encounters where this is not the case and where a FL build really shines. In addition, even on encounters where two tanks are simultaneously taking damage, a FoL build can still be very effective because it helps distribute tank healing responsibility over more healers. While a HL paladin is the most effective tank healer, all healers have some capacity for tank healing that becomes especially powerful when used in combination with each other. Having both a FoL and HL paladin in a raid can be very powerful.
“But I can still use Holy Shock and FoL with a HL build,” you say?
Holy Shock and FoL in a HL build are not as potent as they could be. They also doesn’t provide as much throughput as two consecutive Holy Lights when used on a tank. Its usually not worth it to use Holy Shock on a tank with a HL build. You can (and should) help out with raid healing with a HL build using these two spells when appropriate, but they should not be your primary spells during the encounter. If you find you are raid healing with FoL for the majority of most fights, then you would probably do it more effectively with a FoL build. While the extra mana of a Holy Light build may make you feel more secure, (like having a “just in case” cushion), it ultimately represents wasted potential. If you’re downing bosses no problem with your current setup, then this doesn’t matter and I recommend you don’t change anything. In the end, downing the boss is the only thing that matters.
The drawbacks of Intellect and Holy Light
There’s no question that Intellect is a great stat for Holy Paladins. Point by point, it provides the biggest bonus for all of your stats. Spamming Holy Light while stacking Intellect produces the biggest healing throughput for the longest period of time. However, there are four drawbacks to stacking Intellect and using Holy Light as your primary heal. When you use Holy Light with Intellect, you are almost always wasting your resources in four areas. These four resources are overheals, mana, number of heals (reliability), and mobility.
Drawback #1: High Overheal
Holy Light will always produce more overhealing than FoL and especially compared to Holy Shock. The reason is because it is very difficult to predict both incoming damage and the amount you will heal with Holy Light, especially if your Holy Light crits. There’s a huge difference between a regular Holy Light and a Holy Light crit. In addition to this, a Holy Light will almost always overheal damage done to a non-tank. Lastly, Holy Lights are almost always cast pro-actively, not reactively. This in itself usually causes more overhealing since the heal is made regardless of the amount of damage done. What this means is that a large portion of every heal is going into overheal. And with Beacon, this overheal is doubled.
On the other hand, Holy Shock, as well as Flash of Light, will usually have very low overhealing. Holy Shock is always cast reactively to instantly heal a target who needs healing and thus has very low overhealing. Also, the amount healed by a HS, and especially a FoL is much more predictable than a HL. Both spells are used more reactively to direct healing to the exact targets who need it as soon as damage occurs. These targets are taking less damage and have smaller health pools, meaning these spells fill up a greater portion of their bar compared to a tank’s. And most importantly, these spells are not used to fill a target’s health bar to 100%. The point of a HS or FoL is to get a target out of the danger zone while HoTs, AoE heals, and other raid healing (like Judgement of Light), fill the target’s bar the rest of the way to full.
What this means is that, if used effectively, HS and FoL will have very low overhealing. With Beacon of Light, every heal you do is doubled on the tank. Its unlikely that your Holy Shocks and Flash of Lights will fill a tank’s bar to full by themselves. This means that while getting very little overheal on the raid, you are also getting very little overheal on the tank. Almost all of your heals are being converted into effective heals and you are “wasting” very little of your throughput or your mana bar.
Does overhealing really matter?
If you are downing the boss with what you’re doing, then nothing else matters. However, overhealing matters if you are trying to optimize your paladin. Each encounter will output a specific amount of damage that must all be healed in order to succeed. In most cases, it must be healed immediately. The damage occurs to both the tank and the raid. The purpose of a FoL build is to provide the largest amount of effective healing to the entire raid while also providing key emergency heals. If you are wasting all your extra healing potential on one person (the tank), you aren’t optimizing your contribution to the raid as a whole. A HL paladin will spend a great deal of their gear on extra mana which will often go into extra overheals. A FL paladin will spend that gear on pure throughput while eliminating overheals as much as possible, creating efficiencies in both areas.
Drawback #2: Wasted Mana
If you are using Divine Plea correctly at appropriate times in a fight (as well as Seal of Wisdom), mana should never be an issue for you with either build. Almost every fight allows times to pop Divine Plea with no ill effects. For those fights where there is no lull, there are other ways to mitigate the healing debuff of Divine Plea, such as Avenging Wrath, trinkets, the T10 4-piece, and good communication with your healing team.
Stacking Intellect will give you an extremely large mana pool, as well as small bonuses to many other stats. This extra mana is completely wasted if it is not used during an encounter, or if it is wasted on overheals. Its easy to burn through a mana pool healing targets that don’t really need that level of healing. Do you really need to use Holy Light on that warlock that took 9k damage from a frostbolt? Both unused mana and excessive overheals represent unused potential that you could convert into more effective heals.
A Holy Light paladin has nowhere to go for a “mana dump” if necessary since he’s already using his biggest heals. It can sometimes be difficult to use up the mana pool of a HL paladin without a lot of overheals. On the other hand, a FoL paladin can (and does) still use spell-power charged Holy Lights when appropriate on the tank or near the end of an encounter. We can spam heal FoL and HS as appropriate throughout an encounter and still have mana left to use HL when needed. This makes healing the tank through these critical times even easier due to the extra strong heals provided by a FoL paladin. A FoL paladin has more freedom to be able to use his mana pool in the most efficient way possible since all of his heals are effective, rather than relying mostly on our most expensive and strongest heal. He can upgrade to the strongest heal if needed.
Drawback #3: Number of heals (reliability)
Large heal throughput is not what wins difficult encounters in most cases (this may change in Cataclysm). Most people (including tanks) die not because they weren’t receiving enough heals but because they weren’t receiving those heals at the right time (usually due to a healer needing to move or being otherwise incapacitated). When a person reaches zero health, they die, regardless of how soon after their death they may have received a 25k HL crit. A tank will always receive a smaller number of heals from a HL paladin compared to a FoL paladin who is using Holy Shocks, Flash of Lights, and instant Flash of Lights in addition to the extra raid heals, HoTs and shields that will be going to the tank that won’t be needed on the raid.
Allowing more raid healers to heal the tank (while the paladin helps with raid healing) provides a more stable health to the tank and allows for more mobility (and mistakes) from each healer. Chances are, your raid is already following this technique and has HoTs, shields and other heals rolling on the tank, which means even more of your Holy Lights are unneeded and going into overheals most of the time. HoTs, shields, pre-heals, and Beacon are very effective for taking care of predictable tank damage and very powerful when used in combination with each other and in addition to direct heals (Chain Heal, Swiftmend, Penance, etc). For those times when large tank healing is needed, (like Festergut-25), Holy Light can still be used by a FoL paladin if needed. This doesn’t mean Holy Light is cast reactively. A prepared FoL paladin will know beforehand when HL will be needed.
Drawback #4: Mobility
A FoL paladin has some big advantages when it comes to mobility. Because our Holy Shocks are stronger and crit more often (meaning more instant flash of lights) and our FoLs are stronger and their cast times smaller, we may not see any loss of healing at all when we need to move. This is especially true if we use the Glyph of Holy Shock, which is recommeded over the HL glyph (especially with 4-piece T10). We are also at less of a disadvantage if Light’s Grace ever falls off for some reason since we don’t rely as much on quick Holy Lights. Movement is a great time to throw a HS, instant FoL, refresh Beacon, throw a judgement, or refresh Sacred Shield, with very little downside, since those are our bread and butter spells anyway. We also can rely more on other healers to help keep the tank up while we have to move. It also easier for a FoL paladin to spec into Pursuit of Justice if desired (although not recommended).
Gearing your FoL Paladin
A HL Paladin should almost always choose gear with Haste and Mp5 and gem for Intellect. On the other hand, a FL paladin will look for gear with Haste and Crit until reaching the haste cap (about 680 haste rating), at which point he will switch to Crit and Mp5. Crit is very important for a FoL paladin. It makes your relatively smaller heals stronger and gives you more instant Flash of Lights, a stronger FoL HoT and, of course, gives mana back due to Illumination. Note that there is really no specific reason not to go over 50% crit so that your heals crit more than half the time. Crit is just as beneficial over 50% as it is under, with the one exception of wasted FoL crit for the couple seconds when your Sacred Shield procs. However, crit is always useful for Holy Shock and producing instant Flash of Lights. In general, since haste, crit and Mp5 are all useful for us, a FoL paladin will want to go for the gear with the highest item level (and the most spell power) available, but try to keep a good balance of all three stats with a focus on Crit.
The biggest difference between the gear of the two paladins are our gems, trinkets, and librams. A HL Paladin will gem Intellect in every slot possible. On the other hand, a FL paladin will try to match socket bonuses while gemming for spellpower, crit, and even Mp5 if necessary to match a good bonus. This usually means gemming full spellpower in a red socket, spellpower + crit in a yellow socket, and possibly spellpower + mp5 in a blue socket if you want to match the bonus. A HL paladin will have Intellect trinkets while a FL paladin will have spellpower trinkets. And lastly, a HL paladin will use a libram like the Libram of Renewal while a FoL paladin will use a PvP libram like the Relentless Gladiator’s Libram of Justice. This libram only requires a 700 rating and 350 Arena Points, so it should be in range for any FoL-aspiring paladin to get. If you can get the Wrathful version, even better.
While an Ember Skyflare Diamond is possible with a FoL spec, I still recommend an Insightful Earthsiege Diamond for both specs for the superior mana returns it gives.
As for professions, jewelcrafting and enchanting are great professions for any Holy Paladin, although alchemy can also be very strong if you are always using a flask (Frost Wyrm in this case).
Talents/Spec
Since crit is so important, a FoL paladin will usually go down the Retribution tree to pick up Conviction and Sanctity of Battle. Benediction is also an important talent for us, reducing the mana cost of Holy Shock, instant Flash of Lights, Sacred Shield, Beacon of Light, our judgements, and our seals if we need to switch mid-battle to regen mana. A typical FoL paladin spec will look like this: 51/2/18 (feel free to pick up Aura Mastery instead depending on the fight).
It is possible for a FoL paladin to go down the Prot tree for 5/5 Divinity, Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian for certain fights. You’ll sacrifice some of your healing power and mana efficiency for a stronger Sacred Shield and the Divine Sacrifice cooldown. Note that Divine Sacrifice was nerfed in the last patch. It will no longer absorb 40% of raid damage for a full 10 seconds. Instead, it will only absorb twice your health worth of damage, and an additional 20% of all raid damage for 6 seconds. The initial effect ends early if you let your health go below 20% (however, the second 20% absorption effect remains). So, its not as OP as it used to be but still can be good.
Glyphs
A HL paladin will usually get Glyph of Seal of Wisdom, Glyph of Holy Light, and have their choice of a third glyph (usually Glyph of Divinity).
A FoL paladin will usually pick up Glyph of Seal of Light, Glyph of Holy Shock, and Glyph of Flash of Light for major glyphs and Glyph of Lay on Hands, Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom, and Glyph of the Wise for minor glyphs. Glyph of the Wise will make it a little easier to switch to Seal of Wisdom mid-fight if you need to whack out some mana. If you find you’re having a lot of mana problems for some reason (like you’re on 25-man Festergut and have to use a lot of Holy Lights), then you can switch to Glyph of Seal of Wisdom instead of Glyph of Seal of Light and/or Glyph of Divinity instead of Glyph of Holy Shock. You could also switch out your libram, some gems, or anything else until you’ve switched over to a complete Holy Light build. Sometimes a Holy Light build IS best for a fight. Use your discretion.
Summary
Hopefully this has helped open your eyes to how a Flash of Light build works. Look for a future post where I compare the stats of each paladin and how each heal compares with each other in each build. For now I’ll say that a geared HL paladin will usually have about 8k - 9k more mana than a geared FoL paladin and 600 - 700 less spellpower. In addition, the FoL paladin will have the libram, glyphs, and talents to boost his healing even more while a HL paladin will be boosting his mana efficiency and utility. Feel free to post any questions or comments below. Most of all, have fun experimenting with your paladin.
Good luck!
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For another perspective on paladin raid healing, check this recent post by
I’m not sure a FoL spec is viable for a 10-man, unless the other healer is also a Pally, and then you’re responsible for ALL the raid healing, not just some. As an example, take Marrowgar. With both tanks splitting the damage, Holy Lights need to be raining down on one and beaconing (lets just make up words here) to the other, or they both might die.
Marrowgar is one of those fights where two tanks are taking damage at the same time so it seems to better support the Holy Light build.
However, if the encounter is progression you shouldn’t be 2-healing it anyway. With 3 healers, any other two healers should be able to keep up the two tanks with Beacon also on one of the tanks (meaning you have 3 healers total healing the tanks), allowing the FoL pally to help land those critical quick heals needed on the person who is bone spiked as well as anyone who stands in Coldflame for too long. It also makes it possible to get through the phase if the paladin is the one who is bone spiked, which would likely mean a wipe with a HL paladin healer, especially if you’re 2-healing it. Also, a FoL pally is more useful than a HL one during the Bonestorm phase.
You could probably 2-heal the first phase of Marrowgar with a HL pally if you were lucky with bone spikes, but the Bonestorm phase is more difficult to 2-heal as a HL Pally (assuming its progression) than as a FoL paladin, especially on hard mode and especially if people are getting hit by the coldflame. So, the fight would be difficult to 2-heal regardless of the paladin’s build. For a FoL paladin, the first phase is more difficult and for a HL paladin, the 2nd phase is more difficult. You could definitely 3-heal the encounter with either a HL Paladin or a FoL paladin though.
So, you see, even encounters that seem obviously suited to HL paladins aren’t as much so when you look at it a little deeper. A FoL paladin may actually be better on Marrowgar because of the bone spikes and the Bone Storm phase.
Well personally ive been healing as a holy pally since prewrath.. sunwell KJ pre patch for instance.
I currently am specced for FoL and find my spec supports dual tank damage just fine. Also I have no problems with progression runs with 2 healers. As long as the 2nd healer is competent I out heal everything with higher GS. The only priest I can think of that outheals me has a GS of 5900. Holy light spec is bad regardless. U waste mana.. u waste heals.. and u can cause a wipe much easier then FoL spec(lack of responsiveness). All though u can “blanket” raid heal, which is where u just start spamming holy lights which I do anyway as FoL spec when raid takes alot of damage, thats really the only time its beneficial. Other then that raid never takes alot of damage and FoL Main tank healing isnt an issue either.. only HL on spike damage which should only be followed up after a holy shock 1st which being FoL spec can crit over 10k.
And having all the additional Spell power makes my crucial holy lights hit alot harder then a paladins who has int stacked.
Great article! I’ve been using a FoL build since I started my career as a paladin healer, and I’m on top of the healing charts on every boss encounter. In my opinion this is the way Blizzard intended this class to be played. They wanted us to gem the correct colors and take the bonus, not gather only yellow gems. Also this is a game so it should be fun, and as a FoL healer, the interactivity the game requires is by far more appealing than a HoL build. You feel you’re in the game, because you need to do a lot of things. Also I’m doing PvP and it’s about the same game style ( different talent spec thought), there you will probably not even have time to throw a HL unless you’re bubbled. So if you want to do also PvP, and don’t want to constantly switch playing styles, FoL is the build for you.
Because I switched to a new guild that needed an HL paladin, I’ve had the opportunity to play both builds into ICC10/25.
FoL build shines in 10 man, seriously. First wing is easy, I could single heal Saurfang 10 man for a group with half decent dps. On Marrowgar, if your spellpower is pushing 3300+ you can easly FoL to keep the tanks up, and then heal the raid serious business during bonestorm.
Even on Festergut, both 10 man and 25 man, the FoL build shines because with a spellpower coefficient of 1.8 on Holy Light, your Holy Lights are 50 megaton bombs that really keep the tank alive (particularly if you have competent raid healers helping). I healed through Fester25 as the only Holy Paladin with ease, in a healing group of five.
I do not know how a single FoL paladin would hold up on fights like the Lich King, or how it will hold up in heroic modes. Presumable, if you’re geared appropriately, it should be fine.
As an HL paladin, my job becomes more narrow: Spam heal tanks with HL as they take heavy damage. Only reason I am doing this is due to raid composition necessities. The raid healers in this group are… just amazing, simply unstoppable. So I am an insurance policy with the single objective of keeping tanks up. My overhealing is absurd, but they don’t care: Just keep the tanks alive. I don’t even find myself throwing Holy Shocks to the raid much like I am used to because they are buried neck deep in druid HoTs and Val’anyr bubbles.
So, raid composition is the most important factor in how you build. If you’re pugging, particularly 10 man, FoL build really shines. You can pick up the slack for bad raid healers, have low overhealing, top hps meters and supply super intense tank heals. You can help save raid members from loose adds, etc. Really, FoL build is super powerful (and a lot of fun). It’s unfortunate that the Elitist Jerks forums has more or less condemned its usage.
I’d love to hear from any FoL paladins that have been the only Holy Paladin in groups tackling end of ICC content. Am curious to hear how it goes.
I am the only holy paladin in my guild, so I run a HL build, I’ve done FoL when we had another holy paladin in togc10 once, it wasn’t bad, it worked. Though, the way our raid is setup for healing, I’m solely on the tank, usually with beacon on them helping out with raid heals (Holy Shock, instant FoL, sometimes a fol if the health of the person that takes damage isn’t very low, Holy Light if they’re near dead since it heals them up in one shot.. and its a 1.2 second cast)
Good read though, but for me personally I like to take advantage of my Val’anyr procs, it absorbs quite a bit of damage when using a HL build.
Another point worth mentioning is that the base intellect on most current gear is enough to support quite a bit of Holy Light spamming. Keep some Int trinkets and HL friendly librams in your bag and that adds a lot of flexibility that might be needed on a fight per fight basis.
I am somewhat of a newbie. What do you mean by “Instant flash of light”?
The Infusion of Light talent gives you an instant Flash of Light whenever your Holy Shock spell crits. This means that Flash of Light has no cast time (just like Holy Shock) for that one cast.
What an awesome article. I’ve been a FoL holy pally for a long time. It just suits my play style better and it feels more natural to me then when I’ve forced myself to go the HL route to fit in better. (”Holy pally has less than 30k mana!! LOL!!”). I think the article did a very good job of highlighting the benefits of a FoL build, and I learned a thing or two to boot
(For instance, I’ve been 5/5 in Divinity and never took the 2/5 Divinity & 3/3 in Sanctity of Battle approach — I’m going to give that a shot.)
Did you REALLY just write an article about setting up holy Pallies to raid heal? Are you really that awful?
In ANY challenging content, what you have written would not work. Therefore, your entire post is irrelevant.
Baddie.
FYI you mean tier 10 2piece, not 4 piece. C’mon, I know you’re not an amazing Paladin, but there’s no need to butcher facts here whilst trying to pretend Holy Light is not the way to go.
I am the FoL pally for our guild raids (with the Div Sac build). I’d like to think I work pretty well with the HL pally for tank heals in coordinating our beacons & sacred shields.
I am in the process of re-gemming my gear and am wondering what, if any role, do spellpower gems play in a FoL build (as opposed to Crit + Mp5 as you seem to recommend instead)?
The tier 10 2-piece increases spell power when Divine Illumination is active. The 4-piece gives you a reduced HL cast time whenever you use Holy Shock. I meant the 4-piece because more Holy Shocks gives you more reduced Holy Lights, which is another reason why you’d want the Holy Shock glyph. Its true the 2-piece also helps a FoL paladin more than a HL paladin though.
Also Llunai and DurHur, just because a FoL build does not work for you doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for anyone else. Look for yourself at some high end guilds. I realize this topic brings up strong emotions in some people (for some reason) but try to keep your tone civil.
Cygnia, I may not have been clear enough about what gems to socket. Every gem should really have spellpower. Your gems should usually be full spellpower in red, spellpower + crit in yellows and possibly spellpower + mp5 in blues. Jewelcrafting and enchanting are great professions to have although Alchemy is a strong one as well as long as you always have a Frost Wyrm flask on. I’ll add both of these to the article.
Just so you know, you listed some incorrect information about Divine Sacrifice.
As the tooltip states, it lasts for 10 seconds and the only part that ends when you reach low health is the damage redirection portion. The “raid wall” of 20% damage reduction lasts the entire time, no matter what. That’s why many healadins macro cancelaura to it.
An interesting read, but not viable in any raid with a single healadin, IMO.
Thanks Codi. The main ability does last 10 seconds, but in reality the actual effect rarely lasts the entire 10 seconds because it will only absorb twice your health. Note the part that says, “up to a maximum of 40% of the paladin’s health times the number of party members”. The extra 20% reduction from the Divine Guardian talent only lasts 6 seconds. So, I was correct in saying that the ability aborbs twice your health as well as 20% more for 6 seconds. It was a little confusing when I added how the effect ends at 20% because it is only the first effect that can end early, not the second one. I’ll try to make it more clear.
Also, keep in mind that a FoL build is not necessarily meant to get world firsts or even server firsts. But it is viable and effective for many guilds on progression content.
I run 10man ICC with a FoL build and 2 resto shammies, and we never have any issues.
I tend to stack pure crit in my yellow sockets as opposed to a mixed gem - who doesn’t get off on seeing constant big numbers - and I have found that I have easily reached the soft haste cap without gemming or enchanting for it at all.
I’ve been getting frustrated with the amount of Mp5 on all the Healing Plate I have encountered, I never seem to have mana issues - although this could be because of the 2 Shaman mana totems available to me each encounter! - and I sit on approx 28k mana in a 10man. I generally find I have more than enough to spam HL if needed (although not for the entire fight) and I don’t think using a HL build or stacking more Intellect would benefit us when compared.
I’ve found HL healing much more beneficial. 1.25 second HL is so much more throughput than 1sec FOL that it just doesnt compare. I dont care if i hit 70% overhealing. I can basically solo heal 2 tanks through icc25 content which is far more valuable than helping with raid healing, which other classes are far better suited for.
There are some fights where the tank doesnt take much damgage where i toss on my FOL libram and sp trinkets, but those fights are usually a joke anyways.
If you have access to high end gear, as you get really high haste, you can play the FOL playstyle if you are only assigned to one tank with your beacon on tank and just bombing HL on everyone.
The Fol spec isnt viable. wasted mana, wasted heals ? I have 45k mana wth do I care . My haste has my hols to the gcd with Jop, and Haste buffs from 25 mans. Fol pallies belong in heroics. If I want raid heals i would ask a druid,preist or shaman well before Id ask a pally.
This is an argument that really has been disproven many many times.. HPS is the issue.. great the tanks getting hit for 25k every 1.5 seconds.. Fol doesnt crit hits tank for 5k. Yea I could see that working out real well. Dumb spec at the moment.. maybe you gearscore guys drool over haveing the ilvl264 libram.
I may be wrong maybe your raiding naxx in taht T-10 gear im sure fols will do just fine there.
It isn’t a question of whether its viable or not, the only question is whether its the best. Obviously its viable because people are doing it on progression content in ICC. Its obviously not the best spec for every fight but every fight doesn’t see the tank getting hit for 25k every 1.5 seconds and even if it did, the FoL paladin isn’t supposed to be keeping the tank up by himself. Also, a non-crit FoL doesn’t hit for only 5k from a FoL paladin.
The 45k mana just proves the point about wasted mana. The fights in ICC are not much longer than fights in Naxx, Ulduar, or ToC so in most cases you just don’t need that much more mana if you’re healing intelligently. You can still use HL when appropriate as a FoL paladin while also doing everything else better.
If find it interesting that people still claim its impossible to do when they are clearly wrong as evidenced by the people who are actually doing it. This article isn’t theoretical, its not meant to question whether or not its possible, its meant to show how it is being done.
I did not say it was impossible. At the gear lvl where I am at there isnt a need to cast a FOL. Just really no need. Yea im overhealing so.. I mean it isnt anub. So we bring in a fol pally to raid last week I usually hit around 13k on blood queen. Well this week with the pally I hit 6.5 the other 6.2.. almost 13k together were healing the same targets just the other pally is clipping my big heals. First off Im razzing you more then anything fol pallys have a spot .. Are they min max of the class atm. No they are not. Min max is a Holy Light build. Dropping all mp5 off your gear stacking int, crit , haste. Crit food, int chants , draenic wisdom pots .. or guru/might thought
Hey nice article about the FoL build.
I’ve been looking up some more information about this spec but most things I find are confusing sometimes…
There are different views on everything it seems. Let me elaborate a bit.
Gemming and gear:
1. Put the +23sp gem (Runed Cardinal Ruby) in every slot together with the Ember Skyflare Diamond as a meta. When looking for gear stack sp and crit but keep your haste at the softcap (680).
2. Don’t only gem the Runed Cardinal Ruby but go for as much socket bonuses as possible especially if they give you +7 sp at least. But always use a sp gem with crit for yellow sockets and sp + mp5 for blue sockets. Use the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond for specs and superior mana return.
When looking for gear keep haste at 680 but stack crit and mp5 or sp.
Talent Spec:
Besides the discussion about gemming there is also a discussion about which spec is actually more viable for the FoL build:
(I tend to favor Improved Concentration Aura over Light’s Grace due to the marginal use of HL)
Spec1: The Holy/Ret spec which focuses on Divinity (51/5/15): http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sxA0gG0sVz0tgdxZVf0x
Spec2: The Holy/Ret which includes Sanct of Battle for more crit (51/2/18):http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sxA0gG0sVz0tgdbZVcbx0h
Spec3: The Holy/Prot spec for more healing output with Improv Dev Aura and more Sacred Shield and raid utility (51/20/0):http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sxA0gG0sVz0tgdxGzubh
So which spec is going to provide the most benefit for FoL heals? Is an extra 3% crit (Spec2) better than a 3% more healing(Spec1) together with the mana cost reduction from Benediction for Beacon, SS, HS and instant FoL’s? Or is the third build better given the extra 6% healing compared to the other 2 and more raid utility?
Glyphs:
Glyph of Flash of Light (no discussion)
Glyph of Seal of Light (no discussion)
Glyph of Beacon of Light or Glyph of Holy Shock?
As you can see, things can be very confusing. So I’m wondering what your thoughts are about this subject?
Hi Siedjeey. I think the point is that different setups can be more helpful for you depending on the fight, on your group, and on how you heal. Builds that give you more mana will make it easier for you to cast more Holy Lights if you need to for that fight. So it also depends on your healing style, what spells you use more, what your groups’ gear is like compared to the content, how strong your raid healers are, etc.
IMO, the 3% crit is better than the 3% more healing because of the mana return and Infusion of Light procs for instant Flash of Lights. The extra healing you get from from Improved Devotion Aura is wasted if you have a prot pally or resto druid in the group but can be useful if you don’t. I love the Glyph of Holy Shock. The prot spec is really useful on some fights like Festergut and not so much on others, like Rotface.
It is good to see that someone HAS sat there and put the main point out there for people, cuz i am personally sick of geting told u only have 27k mana.. you suck and cant heal this, and when it comes down to me a druid and a shaman first 4 bosses in ICC 10, i sit there at 50% healing as a FoL.
ever sence 3.1 people think a pally HAS to be HL built… your wrong… and this post for lack of a better word has sat there and displayed ALL the pros of a FoL. Granted in 25ICC i would rather be HL built, but shit happens until i get 2 sets of holy gear wont happen as i can heal a 10man icc though and though and be more affective then almost any other class at the raid and the tank as the same time. with the exception of festor and sinda at times.
Good work to the writer of this post.
Hey!
Thanks for a great site, this plus maxdps is a great place for info for a beginner like me.
My question is, I’m running 5-man hc’s right now. I’m sitting at 4300 GS and around 1800+ SP i think.
I have only done like 5 Hc’s as holy palla and the only time people died was because of spike damage.
Does it even matter which spec you use in HC’s? Would a FoL build be as viable? I mean, i find myself casting both FoL & HL quite alot, but as the only healer it would be nicer to be able to get out 2-3 heals since some people are tards and get alot of dmg.
Raid buffed FOL/HL hybrid build-holy/retribution spec. Stats from recount on 25 man icc this week. Stats discount beacon heals.
Beacon offtank, SS main tank drop a hammer (Justice)
HS=10,800 instant cast
FOL=10,400 instant cast rolls 872/sec 12 sec
FOL=11,200 .78 sec
32k heals in 1.28 secs. I was fast that time.
SO, I swap trinkets, relic and….
Beacon off tank, shield main tank, drop a justice…
HS=10,200 instant cast
causing crit strike HL=24,100
34k heals in 1.72 secs. Was slow on the button.
Also,same as above, then:
HS=9,600 causing instant FOL=9,200 rolls 612/sec/12 sec
HL=18,800 HL at 1.78 sec followed by
HL=21,400 at 1.38 sec. (.30 sec reduction)
59,000 hp in 3.36 secs. Was a fast time for me.
Conclusion: After awhile, your just programing different spells into healing interface of choice to get close to the same results. AT a 34k mana well one way and a 31k mana pool the other, mana is not an issue.
with my 251 set gear with 264’s filling in the gaps. I solo healed VOA 10man complete……solo healed 10 man icc marrowgar only.9 man grp.
You build these right you can do whatever you want to. Weather it is all intellect or all spell power. Having the right relic, glyph, spec, trinket for your build makes it so that either way, you can be a raid or tank healer. I can gem my equipment all sp and have 12k to 14k FOL every .78 sec with 28,200 mana.That also has 12k to 22k HL Or gem all intellect and have a 34,800 mana base and hit 18k to 34k HL every 1.38 to 1.68 sec. and still have 4,800 to 8,200 FOL every .78 sec. With my gear if i hit the tank with FOL build twice with FOL for 24k in 1.6 to 1.7 sec or with HL build one HL for 24k in 1.6 to 1.7 sec does it matter? The FOL might hit 5,600 to 14k depending on situation, sp curve and crit strike, divine plea, debuffs. The HL might hit 12k to 36k depending on the same variables.
Anyway you look at it, Holy Pally’s must use all their healing spells, damage mitigation, cleansing, damage transfer, threat transfer, damage absorption and protection spells to maximize their toon. Simply gemming a certain way and spamming one spell is not going to get you through icc or toc.
I am the main holy paladin in my guild and I play a high crit FoL build with ease. With my increased spell power, ridiculous crit and haste I am able to solo heal ICC10 Lower Spire with ease and often duo heal ICC10 Lower Spire HC with an offspec druid.
My high throughput and low downtime mean that I constantly top healing meters with the lowest overhealing whilst my HL counterparts often feature in 4th place with the highest overhealing (Often this is equal to the amount of healing done).
Mana is also never an issue as I still retain a large mana pool of between 35-38k.
Playing as a FoL Paladin situational awareness and a good raid UI like Grid or Healbot is key - you need to be able to get your heals off whilst still moving and paying attention to what is going on around you, compare this to a HL Paladin on Putricide 25, a FoL Paladin is able to HS and Instant FoL whilst on the move from Malleable Goo (for example)…A HL Paladin will either sacrifice a heal to move (Potentially killing the tank if there is no one else healing him at the time) or get hit my Malleable Goo increasing raid healing required to get them back up to full health.
I have certainly never found myself inclined to try a HL build - I much prefer to challenge myself with the FoL build and found this post to be very interesting - I’ve never seen anyone compare the two paladin builds this way outside of regular guild discussions with my other paladins!
Thanks.
Having run a FoL build and a HL build for 10 man dungeons since WoTLK came out and then 25 mans when our guild entered ICC, i can say that the HL build is better when, as many have said before me, the raid composition is different. HL build is great for raid healing in my opinion, when the raid healer is helping on the tank. Don’t get me wrong, FoL can do this well, but on Fester and 4 Horsemen and Blood Princes, FoL is not enough for healing intense parts. Now, FoL on the other hand is handy for all the fights, if your raid healers can keep the tanks up. Primarily based on the fact that FoL builds carry high crit and haste to keep tanks health up, I merged both build and came up with a solution. Gemming all intellect provides both a bit of crit and a steady mana pool, whereas going into crit in gear and haste in enchants got me 32.34% crit unbuffed at 5.5k GS. I admit this is high, but from farming the first 4 bosses of ICC, gear comes flowing in. I have just under a 30k mana pool, but with high crits, I can raid heal and have always (always) had the highest heals, as well as overheals in the group. This is because of the following plan that I always review:
1. Tanks take damage, but FoL without improved spell power like a pure FoL build wont cut it, so i picked up the Holy Shock trinket (grants sp everytime you use Holy Shock), because throwing this on any raid member that needs heals is always effective. At 32.34% crit, I get my instant FoL whenever it crits, usually 2 or 3 tries, then i have max sp from the trinket.
2. Then, when my FoL does 5.2k healing (instant), with the Sacred Shield on the tank, I have tank support and I can tell the raid healer on most fights just to put HoTs and shields on my tanks.
3. HL is my main spell. Raid damage in ICC (which is what most of these articles aim towards) is large, and with raid healers needing all the help they can get, I have the other healer help me with the non-beaconed tank so I can help on the raid. HL keep the tank up no matter the damage, and Holy Shock is a core move that can keep raid members up while giving me a chance for my instant FoL.
4. When people complain about mana loss in HL spamming, it is because they misuse it: HL needs to heal people who need the heals. If they are running out of mana, it is because they do not interpret the fight ahead of time.
5. KNOW YOUR FIGHTS! Someone has done the fight before you, and if not you’re probably gonna feel your way through it anyways. If you can go read Tankspot or HolyPaladin’s guides on bosses, then you can know about when a good time is to use your Divine Plea, or when to use any of those spells that I can confirm that 90% of holy pallies never use (Divine Favor = auto crit; Divine Illumination = MEGA MANA SAVINGS when you spam holy light, which with a future t10 2 piece bonus will get you mega sp, so you can Divine Plea, Divine Illumination and heal as you see fit; Hand of Sacrifice on a beaconed tank and holy light on yourself; and others that I probably don’t use.
6. Chat with your group during the fight. This helps to have Ventrilo or something to talk with: telling your group that your mana is getting low or that people need to stay out of the green slime so that you can cut back on needless healing will save everyone trouble. If you tell your group you are getting low on mana, you might be able to have a raid healer help out while you divine plea and mini-heal the tank or raid. You can also talk about overhealing, if you are healing the raid = whether you want to plan about who will heal who when the big damage bomb goes off.
7. Paladin’s are healing tanks: we can heal a lot, but we can’t move much. Therefore, any fights where healing and moving are required might neccesitate an additional healer. Don’t be afraid to ask for a third healer in 10 mans or a sixth/seventh healer in 25 mans. Fights that are mana-intense can also require an extra heal for big phases or tank changes, such as Festergut’s 3rd Blight Inhale, when he deals massive damage to tanks that even Paladins have trouble healing through.
8. Overhealing ISN’T A PROBLEM! Unlike popular opinion, top of the healing charts isn’t everything, but keeping people alive is. If you overhealed, don’t worry, because if you overhealed with HL, then the glyph might heal the raid; if you overhealed with FoL then you haven’t lost much mana or time.
I’d love to hear any reaction to this post! Thanks! (No criticism to FoL or HL pure builds, you all heal great!)
Hey
You say HL paladins stack int (ofc they do) but its not just for the over-sized mana pool, intellect also provides a huge amount of spell crit which helps greatly in both aspects.
Using tier 10 - 4 set bonus (Holy shock make your next HL in 20sec’s 0.3 reduced cast time) is sick as its equal to 10% spell haste on HL, this combined with the talent lights grace I believe (When you cast HL you have 100% chance to make your next HL 0.5 reduced cast time) means that in situations when your raid it taking huge spike damage, the combo of HL,HS,HL,HL,HS,HL,HL is very useful - Given that all holy pala’s should have tailisman of resurrgance, you can macro the SP use the Divne plea in order to ofset the healing penalty, pop Divine Ilummination for added mana cost reduction & increase your healing by 35%.
Hope someone may get some use from this
Jedd - Thunderhorn
I’ve read a lot about the FOL build(i call it Crit healing) on your site and have been using it for some time. I gem Potent Ametrines, Royal Dreadstones, & 3 Smooth Dragon’s Eyes and use standard enchants. My current toon is a little heavy on MP5 gear, wish I had more haste gear like my other pally, but she’s fairly well-geared. My post relates to my healing output.
I joined a new guild about a month ago and almost from the start I was constantly being asked to change from my FOL build to a HL build, which I was unwilling to do. I’ve been trying to use Recount to justify my numbers but everything I’ve read says that Healing Done represents the effective healing, which typically puts me at the bottom of the meters in elite groups(especially Sindragosa!).Help
Also, it seems to me that the FOL build will be the more effective build in Cataclysm based on several of the things I’ve read on your site. Do you believe this to be the case?
I every time be a fan of this site, I find it really well structured. Congratulations to the creator of the website
Hello again! I know this is an old post but I was hoping you might have some answers on my June 13th post! Thank you
FoL builds are totally viable for 10man endgame raid content. I’m a FoL holy pally and I’ve two healed the first 6 in 10 ICC without a problem. I’ve solo healed 10 VoA before. FoL healers can heal just as big. My HLs still crit for 25k. The best part is that my FoLs cast at a 1.1 second cast time and crit for 10k. That’s way more than enough to keep everyone up.
@Isabeeau
FoL is a “dont waste any mana” build in my opinion. So you should be able to beacon one tank and heal the raid for instance. Whereas holy pallies who try to heal the raid will be forced to resort to weak FoLs or long-casting HL, u should be able to put quick and powerful FoLs out there to help the healers. If you aren’t topping the charts, it may be because your job is to only save the tanks? If so, the raid healers and/or other tanks healers with their mega healing bombs will suck up the big damage from the boss and your FoL will not. Therefore, I would recommend to not aim for the top of the chart: aim to not let anyone die at all (aka: raid heals and beacon tank XD.).
As for Cata, I believe that with a new aoe heal and some new mechanics, anything is possible! it all depends on the damage tanks will take now XD.
Hope that this answers a few questions!
Hey everybody, before I start I would like to thank whoever made this article and all of you who have commented, it’s really helped. I’m currently a flash of light paladin, sitting at 3349 spell power,35.20% crit, and 514 haste (all unbuffed). I’ve recently switched from HL build because i felt that i was not utilizing my healing correctly and overhealing people who did not need heals. I would like to talk about one thing now, it may just depend on how one heals but is the Furious Gladiators Libram of Justice (Increases spell power of FoL by 375) better than the ilvl 264 libram. most FoL paladins i’ve seen use the furious one but i would just like to make sure. I would also like to bring up another topic. Most of my gear is crit and mp5 considering what i’ve said above, i have higher crit although i stack little crit with my gems, is stacking haste more than crit more ideal for me? If someone could help me that would be great! :)http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Runetotem&cn=Paladinbane there is my armoury, oh and the libram isint right i just had that equipped on accident when i last was on
thanks guys!
Im still in the process of re-gemming just fyi
those intell gems arent set and stone.
Love this post. I thought I was one of the few pallies who does it this way. Despite what people say, if you have the experience and practice to be effective with it, this build can definitely work. Holy light spamming is NOT the only way to heal.
I’m a FoL healer.
I switched to FoL after being fustrated from the fact that when in raid by the time i finish to cast HL that target is already fully healed. This was even more critical in the past when beach only healed the actual healed portion and not the overheal.
Im my eyes FoL healing is much better then HL, if done properly by a skillful healer.
Fol healer is no longer a dedicated tank(s) healer cos he’s too slow to heal the entire raid.
As FoL healer i still outhps every other kind of healer out there and esp HL healers.
Becuase of the higher probebility for crit from FoL & the higher probebility to proc verious abilities (because i cast more often), the individual FoL isnt that small of a heal & and overall HPS isnt small either.
I do belive that new healers show start as HL healer and work his way up to FoL healer as it requires more skill, dexterity & the ability to split yr attantion between more things.
My advice to a begginer FoL healer:
1. change you glyphs and holy build to accomidate FoL healing
2. Wse seal of light (not wisdom)
3. Use a macro to JoL your focus (pref the MT) target and also bind to it every skill with a long cd that you’re “saving” but end up never using as a result, since every one of those have different cd they end up scaling up nicely.
4. JoL JoL JoL JoL and then JoL some more, in other words always keep yr JoL up. Also make sure always to be in judge range
5. In raid situations only beacon the MT but use sacred shield followed by FoL on OT, this helps you from loosing the OT since in FoL healing the OT(s) just dont get that much attantion you used to give them, since yr busy healing the raid more.
6. Dont forget to use your holy shock, in fact use it every time it becomes available.
7. If yr healing a single target and feel the HPS from FoL just isnt enought use holy shock followed by an instant FoL or HL
Forgot to mention that the best libram for a FoL healer is the pvp libram.
You can get the current low lvl libram for just honor.
The current low lvl libram is: Furious Gladiator’s Libram of Justice, which gives a permenent sp boost of 375 to your FoL.
Just dont forget to upgrade whenever theres a new arena season
reply to Pala
Your libram, in my opinion, should be the Binding Light one (it stacks spellpower throughout the whole fight as you continue to cast it). My toons, Isabeeau and Dahlscot, are on the Doomhammer realm in the US if youj want to search for their gear on wow-heroes.com. With the Lightsworn gear 2 piece set bonus I use this macro at least once a boss fight to get mana back AND actually heal better while doing it!
/cast Avenging Wrath
/cast Divine Illumination
/cast Divine Plea
In my realm, of the top 100 pallies (of which I am) my toons are the only two that spec this way. I have arrogant know it alls who disrespect me in raids over guild chat and vent all the time but I hang in there because this spec works great. Yeah, a variety of HL pallies can beat me in different fights but I top the meters frequently. Just wish there was a way to show saving heals and people would appreciate our spec more. That is, yeah a HL pally can look great on the meters but the saving heals we throw out with our critting Holy Shocks rarely get noticed. FYI, if you dont have Divine Favor in a macro with your Holy Shock casts, youre losing valuable heals. I put this macro into my Healbot spells and works great!
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use 13
/use 14
/use Divine Favor
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/cast [target=hbtarget] Holy Shock
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();
Hope ppl read this! lol
It’d be nice to get some feedback from Holy paliles doing Arenas or bgs. It seems that most of the content here is aimed towards those who raid - and that’s fine - but, how about for those of us who want to do some PvP?
I started an FoL build but gave up on it, and started gemming for intellect, and started using HL more. But like many of you said - the HLs are wasted sooo many times (in raids).
I have a lot more fun using FoL, and still use it quite a lot (still have glyphs).
I’m still in the middle, deciding, which way to go. I do more PvP than PvE and raiding - if not for the casual weekly raids, VoA, and heroics.
Any help would be appreciated!
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