Originally Posted by
rhandric
Save EF for when you take a big hit - I've had EF (the initial heal) heal me for most of my health before, when used at 5 stacks and 3 HoPo. If the fight (or the part of the fight) doesn't have big hits, still wait until you've taken some damage, so that the initial heal of EF isn't wasted. The rest of the time, though, your HoPo is best spent on SotR.
And keep in mind, prot and ret use the same gear/stat priority. Take D/P gear if the ilvl difference makes it an upgrade (at least a tier, or 13 ilvls) due to stam/armor amounts, but try to stick with gear with haste on it when you can. But, make sure that, since you're taking haste gear and gemming/reforging to haste, you're hitting buttons as fast as you can, so that that haste actually matters - having dead time between ability usage makes haste less effective.