Oathkeeper is slooooowFollow

Based on the advice and wisdom of everyone here I have decided to give up my foolish dreams of having any version of a hybrid spec at end game. I've decided to go with one of CaptJack's 41/20/00 builds in the sticky. I'm nearly level 69 but I have a LOT of questing and normal instance runs left before I will start in on arena/heriocs.

Until now I have had a leveling spec which relied on a fast two hand weapon for use with SoR and Reckoning. But I've recently upgraded to the Oathkeeper which seems too slow for me to get the full benefit of this rotation. The damn thing makes me feel like I'm swinging it underwater. I've started missing SoC. I'm currently Holy spec with enough points in Prot to get Reckoning. I'm considering dropping everything out of Prot and putting it in Ret just for SoC.

I hesitate to respec just because I got a new weapon. But while questing I want to do as much dps as possible with my weapon. Before anyone asks this won't affect my healing at all...I run totally different equipment and weapons when group healing. I'm just focusing on questing.

Would SoC really provide enough dps over SoR to make respecing worthwhile at this point?

I would forget about reckoning, plus you can't have Reckoning with a 41/20/00 build.

I think it would be a good idea to go ahead and spec for your end-game build whether it is a 41/20/00 or 41/00/20. I mention the 41/00/20 (Shockadin) because it sounds like you want to retain some dps potential and that build will give you the best chance of doing that.

As for the Oathkeeper, I personally don’t care for it (30 spell damage sucks). I’d use a high SP one-hander when soloing but that's just me I like to stay "in character". I also solo in my healing gear, freeing up a lot of bag space. I have a tank set and a ret set but they stay in the bank.

A shockadin does well in PvP if they don't dps at all and just heal... i.e. be a healadin.

I wouldn't worry tooo much about having a mana reserve for healing. With enough +heal in your gear your FoL should be healing a good amount of your health, so just a few casts should bring you back up to full.

I tried the shockadining very briefly in my 2-week holy ordeal. It kinda worked and I was able to grind through mobs about as quickly as I could in my ret gear, though my spelldamage gear really was pitiful, if I had devoted more gear to it I could see myself having a better grinding experience. All-in-all though, I never found myself wishing that I had enough mana to heal myself up, but I did have to drink quite a bit more.

It's only one more level till 70, just try to grind through it so you can start getting the really good gear.

For me, alot of my healing gear doubles as solo gear. With the changes in 2.3, my healing gear contributes decent +spell damage. If you just want to be able to solo quest as a shockadin, this is a good option. If want to focus on dps, then you will need specialized gear. Mana shouldn't be all that much of an issue since any healing or spell damage gear will give you lots of int and mp5. Experiment and figure out how much mana it generally takes for you to kill a mob and calculate how many mobs at your level you can down with your current mana pool(for me it's 3). Leave yourself 15-20% of your mana pool to heal yourself and you should be fine.