Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Tower of Radiance

I'm running two specs now, a Tower of Radiance spec and an Eternal Glory spec. The difference between them is fairly minor. My "main spec" for OMFG-TANK-DAMAGE fights has Eternal Glory. I spec out of Tower of Radiance because I put Beacon of Light on the off-tank and spam Holy Light on the main tank like it's 1999.

For fights like Beth'tilac, I wanted ToR because BoL doesn't transfer between levels. I figure if I have to Bacon the tank I'm healing anyways, may as well generate some extra holy power? And I wanted to have Pursuit of Justice, because, well, I like being fast. Perhaps it's not entirely optimal, but for the fights where I'm using BoL for Holy Power, I figure I may as well not bother with Eternal Glory. In theory, I'll be using Light of Dawn a whole lot. (My glyphs reflect these choices, too, one for each spec).

I don't know what I would do, if I only had one spec to choose to be a healadin. I feel tugged in two directions, with mastery demanding one play style and haste another. Each has it's own build and strengths and weaknesses, and every encounter seems to demand something different.

We got Beth to 1% last night but ran out of time to go in for that one last attempt. I feel pretty darn useless in Phase 2, but I think that has more to do with my being a paladin than being a mastery-stacking paladin. Hit Holy Radiance on cooldown, spam the raid. Those bubbles get absorbed, at least, but without haste my direct heals are painfully slow.

I guess, even with haste, my direct heals are still painfully slow. =P

TL;DR: Paladins need a third spec so healadins can have 2 healing specs AND an offspec. Because not everyone is crazy enough to do holy/holy like me.

5 comments:

  1. We two healed Beth in ten man and I felt far from useless in phase two. Holy Radiance on cooldown, light of dawn when it's up and your BoL has aggro (so they get a big splash of BoL healing), and otherwise spam DL on the tank with aggro.

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  2. Hi Timmy, Glad to hear that paladins are doing alright in 10 mans. I was more referring to my experience in 25s, where the raid damage is insane (not saying it's not in 10s, its just a different type of insane on 25s). Even glyphed for the 6th target for LoD, I felt like there was a lot of time where I really wanted another AoE button but I had no holy power and Radiance was on cooldown.

    I suppose useless is too strong a word. Less than ideal, perhaps not pulling my weight as well as I might have been able to as a priest or shaman or druid.

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  3. I'm crazy enough to do holy/holy, though it helps one of the holy specs is for PvP. I wish I had a third spec so I could pick up tanking again, but there just isn't the room.

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  4. This is for normal Beth'tilac you mean? Yea... Pallies really useless in ground phase.

    On heroic the damage is so ramped up, you'll be even more useless (though Tank healing requirements go up).

    On this fight, I use both Tower of Radiance and Blessed Life. Even if your primarily healing your tank, Tower of Radiance is still worthwhile. Keeping beacon up on your maintank and swapping it to the offtank when needed generated more healing for me then Beacon on offtank.

    Most Firelands fights include tankswaps, not simultaneous tanking (reducing effectiveness of beacon transfers). I'll be dealing with this topic soon on my own site and I invite you to visit. www dot scree dot org

    Cheers!

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  5. Sorry, Hana and Feya, I never noticed till now that you had commented.

    Hana, I think even if we had 3 specs I could still find a way to go Holy PVE all the way! Terrible, isn't it? But yes, tri-spec would help a lot of players.

    Feya, I'm using ToR but not Blessed Life. I wonder if I should look at it, since extra holy power seems to be the name of the game for Phase 2. (And if I can get ticks upstairs, too, then that's gravy). Last night I tried swapping Bacon at tank swaps but I always feel kinda.... awkward doing that. A waste of a GCD, though using a direct heal on the raid also seems like a drop in the bucket that disappears before it's even casted.

    This is one of those fights that gives me priest envy. But that's alright. I'm okay with feeling a bit awkward on some phases, because it gives other classes a chance to shine. Not every fight can make paladins feel all godly or the qq would be monstrous... right? :D

    (Pardon my excessive tongue-in-cheek joking, in case I'm not near as funny as I think I am. Actually, I'm not.)

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