5.3 (Holly Pally) Haste or Mastery?

[Garafi 0]

I've been recently thinking about the changes 5.3 has brought to healing for Holy Pally's, more specifically the nerf to there Mastery(Illuminated healing). While it is still extremely useful I do wonder if haste might now be the better option for multiple reasons: With the recent extensive use of Eternal flame and less LoD wouldn't stacking haste essentially only increase Eternal flames usefulness? Haste would increase the number of ticks from eternal flame and increase the number of eternal flames you have on different players(more casts of holy radiance / divine light would increase the amount of holy power generated). Stacking haste would also lower the CD on our crusader strike allowing us to use it more frequently to generate holy power. Lastly stacking haste would increase our melee attack speed. While this isn't a huge gain it would increase the amount of mana gained during a fight while in melee with the boss. The nerf to Holy Pally's mastery seemed to be much more then just 2%, and while it didn't render it useless It makes me wonder if it tipped the scale in favor of haste over mastery. Feel free to respond and even correct anything I might have misunderstood. Thanks:)

[Uranu5 0]

Well, I ain't no theory crafter or raider in Heroic ToT Content... or a player who has done many Challenge modes and got it made, but the 2% nerf on mastery does make it a lesser needed stat. Now compared to Haste, or haste caps persay on speeding your spells up to a likable ceiling to where you can perform an AoE healing rotation like say...

HS (Holy Shock), LoD (Light of Dawn), HR (Holy Radiance), LoD, HR, HS (Daybreak x2) - Repeat starting with LoD.

While I bet this rotation isn't too optimal, it has been getting the job done for things like Megara and other fights when stacking for AoE, and I notice that I needed to reforge into a little more haste to speed up my HR's.

So getting to the basis of the question on if Mastery is being beat out by Haste? No, Mastery definitely is the bread and butter of a Holy Paladin when it does 30% of the work. However setting priority to a set haste to your liking... that is something worth looking into or trying out in your next raid.

[Krazyito 521]

I raid 25 man heroic content and hold paladins still do really well with mastery. It puts them more in line with the other healers.

Haste may be a good option for a 10 man guild as it allows the paladin to have more control.

But you also need to be aware that mastery is more HPM than haste by a good margin. Haste should only be used if you can properly manage your mana.