Hi everyone. I am sorry if a post similar to mine has already been made, I did spend some time trying to find another. If one has been, then please feel free to redirect me to it if you could be so kind.
Up until recently, I was performing very well with my holy paladin in 25-man raids. I was placing very high on meters (I don't necessarily care about this for any form of pride's sake - but to me, it is a reflection of how much I am contributing) and having a lot of fun simultaneously healing my tank(s) and my raid.
Now, I feel that I am almost useless. I do not place as well as any other healer. I've reverted to using flash of light because I can no longer catch anyone's HP below maximum any other way, and then only some times; someone else clips it off with an instant cast before I have the chance to. This includes the tank, which I've simply started spamming flash of light on.
I don't think I have suddenly become a lot worse, although I certainly don't discredit it as a possibility. My raid has started to take 6 healers along, most of which are Priests/Shaman/Druids. They spam group healing spells and then spam cast on the tanks.
I love my character very much, but this is no longer any fun for me. I am heavily considering rolling a priest so I can feel useful again, but I both don't want to redo the entire levelling/gearing/purchasing/professions/achievement process only to make a character I love obsolete, and would like to explore the possibility that I am simply doing something wrong in this new situation.
A brief summary of my approach:
I keep Judgement of Light on the raid's main target.
I beacon the tank I am supposed to be paying the most attention to (although this has become difficult lately, as I haven't been able to get many reliable heals off on others to heal the tank).
I try my best to raid heal with holy light, holy shock and flash of light while still keeping my tank alive.
I tend to favor holy light and holy shock more than flash of light, but will use flash of light merely for speed's sake if the raid damage isn't very heavy.
I attempt a lot of pre-emptive casting on the tank during raid damage downtime.
I use my various cooldowns to try to keep my mana available or to take advantage of a heavy raid damage situation (which has become increasingly difficult lately, given the aforementioned about group healing spells).
I have 2150 SP, 24.81% crit (I'm kings specced for my guild), 558 haste rating, and 1,279 intellect or 23.3k mana.
I also made what I feel is the mistake of gemming for spellpower and will probably change my gems to haste rating or crit, although many of them are also currently intellect.
If anyone could help me, I would appreciate it ever so much. Thank you for taking the time to read my post.