Holy Pally Spec question

[Polgarion]

51/20/0 or 53/0/18

Which is better? Which is more effective Spell Power vs Int? Just trying to figure out the best spec and itemization.

I read up on the WOW boards but reading through a lot of that mindless drivle is maddening. I'd like to get some guildies opinions

[Qare]

It depends. It's not entirely either/or. Every heal that you throw out is situational and depends on the fight, what other healers you have, who you are healing, and what sort of damage other people are taking. I believe that it is foolish to try to suggest that a paladin be a Holy Light or a Flash of Light spammer, because every fight is not going to be the same healing wise.

<deep breath> That disclaimer aside: here is the current conventional wisdom as I understand it.

In most cases, in current content, a raiding holy paladin will stack int. Your role is to cast big heals and to be able to keep casting them for the duration of the fight, and the deep mana pool you get from int is invaluable. You basically spam holy light, keep your beacon and SS up, and use Glyph of Holy Light to splash heals around clusters of your comrades.

The alternate to this is to stack Spellpower over Int, and to use Flash of Light as your primary heal, saving the big gun of Holy Light for significant damage. Blizz seems to be nudging us towards this with the attention they are giving to Flash of Light, in set bonuses and in potential changes to FoL that are in testing on the PTR right now.

Currently in 25 man raiding, your best best in my experience is the Int/HL model. In a 25 man group you'll have druids/shammies/priests all of whom have more efficient tools to provide general raid healing than you. Your role is more likely to be keeping the tank(s) alive, and with beacon you can do this and also splash out big heals to raid members as needed while the healers with HoTs and smart cast raid healing are doing their thing.

If you are going to be doing a lot of heroics for now or are a new raider and not likely to be assigned to tank duty, then SP/FoL is worth going for while you continue to build your Int/HL set.

One other key stat to be building regardless of which path you choose is haste. Haste increases the chance that HL will reach them in time, and increase the amount we can put out. You won't gem for this, you'll just look for haste as a stat in your gear.

[dorgol]

I spec 51/20/0. I like the utility offered by Divine Sacrifice, and I like the extra time on my Sacred Shield. Most other Paladins I heal with go into Ret for the extra crit, but I don't normally see much difference in healing output.

Qare has the right idea when it comes to Holy Light / Int vs Flash of Light / Spellpower. In my experience, though, Holy Light spam is really only needed in hardmode fights. Even into 25 man ToC raiding, I spend 90% of my healing time spamming Flash of Light onto either a tank or the raid - allowing my Beacon to keep the other tank alive.