I use Flash of Light as my main heal, it's cheap and fast. I use holy light if someone's in trouble, it's not as cheap or fast, but 9x's out of 10 they are saved.
(Molt gives great healing pointers, even if your of the non-drood variety)

After I get my enchants, ZG enchants and  3 more items on my wish list (head, neck and trinket) my stats will change a bit, which has me asking myself and other some technical game questions. Here we go...

My Flash of Light (1.5 sec) heal should hit for around 724 to 764.

That's basically spamming 724 to 764 every 1.5 seconds at a cost of 140 mana. I will be healing over 5 times the mana cost.

If spamming Flash of Light I would heal 1035-1240 every 5 seconds, I should be able to heal for around 12400-14880 during a 1 minute fight- and I should never run out of mana for a 1 minute fight.

Ok i have a question, I know the 5 second rule- no Spirit-based mana regen until 5 seconds after a cast. I am correct in that this does not include mana regen from gear?

If that's true I should be able to cast Flash of Light (1.5 seconds), wait 10 seconds (regen around 95 mana: 51 Spirit-based and 44 from items) and repeat.

This would offset my Flash of Light effectively making it cost 45 mana, allowing me to cast Flash of Light 147/148 times before I loose all of my mana. Providing I did my math correctly, on a 12 second rotation (From the time I cast, to the time I cast again), I could heal with Flash of Light for 29 minutes! That seems impossible, but sweet!

I know this would really never happen during gameplay, there are to many other things I might need to do- cleanse, bless, shield, seal, judge.... did i mention cleanse?

Provided that the +44 mana from items does circumvent the 5 second rule, that still effectively makes the cost of a Flash of Light spell only 96 mana. Allowing me to heal for 1035-1240 at the cost of 288 mana (5 second period, 3 casts). To give you an Idea, the highest trained spell for Holy Light, Rank 8, costs 580 mana and heals for 1246 to 1388. That's almost half the cost for a heal that's only offset by a couple hundred health that takes 1 second less to cast.

None of that even takes this into consideration:
Using Concentration Arura, Blessing of Widom,  and rotating Judged Seal of Wisdom and Seal of Wisdom- 

Once judged with Seal of Wisdom each hit to the judged target grants up to +59 mana to the attacker. In conjunction with Seal of Wisdom active on the paladin, he/she can generate +59+90 mana per hit. In addition, Blessing of Wisdom can generate +33/tick. With a fast 1h weapon a paladin can generate up to 149+149+33 ~= +333 mana per tick. And that does not take into consideration the Improved Blessing of Wisdom talent or mana regen gear (mana/5). The Concentration Aura helps to ensure you get that heal off in time.

-wowwiki.com

Using something like this solo would provide me with around 400 mana ever 5 seconds. Realistically, I'm guessing it would be closer to 250-350 per 5 seconds.


Note: These ar non buffed stats and do not take into account interruptions or crit heals.
Mana Regen Formulas: http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Mana_Regen
5 Second Rule: http://www.wowwiki.com/Five_second_rule
Pally Info: http://www.wowwiki.com/Paladin

If your gear item says "regenerates X mana every 5 seconds" then it ignores the 5 second rule completely. Example: Mindtap Talisman is a trinket, the only bonus it has is +11 mana every 5 seconds (very nice!). This trinket will give you a 11 mana every 5 seconds no matter what you are doing (casting or resting).

The 5 second rule applies to normal mana regeneration, the rate is controlled by Spirit and your class regen formula. I don't know it for other classes off hand, but for priests it is:

Mana Regeneration per tick = (Spirit/4)+13
[1 tick = 2 seconds]

This regeneration starts again 5 seconds after the last time a spell was cast. It is now 5 seconds from the spell effect, not from the time you started casting the spell. That was changed several patches ago. The timer used to start when you started your cast. Now it's 5 seconds from when you end the cast. It can make a big difference on spells that take several seconds to cast (like big healing spells).

A very common healing tactic with endgame raiding priests who have access to a lot of +healing gear is to cast lower ranks of spells. The +healing gear makes them as effective as the higher ranks, but costing much less mana. The amount of +healing added to the spell from gear bonuses depends on the casting time of the spell. Slower spells receive more bonus. Faster spells receive less. I think 1.5 second spells receive 43% of your total +healing. You might be able to achieve very high mana/healing ratios also be casting lower ranked Holy Light spells (level 7 or 6 instead of level 8).

There is a Libram that drops in Scholo that increases Flash of Light +53. I think that is a full +53 and not 43% x 53 (like +healing gear).

i thought i read somewhere they were changing the lower rank heals so that they will not be getting as much of a bonus from +heal gear in the near future.   dont mean to put a kink in any plans just wanna inform

Kalmir you are right Blizz is changing that so that rank one doesnt get the full effect of the +to anything gear you might be wearing at level 60.

That being said Flash of Light rank 6 costs the same mana as rank 1 and casts the same speed. I dont think Jureal was planning on using lower level flashes and get a bonus from the +to heal gear. I think he was looking more about the mana regen gear versus the 5 second rule for your character mana regen.

Regen gear works all the time.
Character regen changes during battle and doent go back to "normal" until 5 secs after battle.

Virby

yeah, silly 2.0.1 patch...

but I just wont be using as many lower lower rank heals...