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Holy Paladin Compendium for 3.3
Holy Paladin Compendium
This is a rewrite of the previous Holy compendium put together by Ermad found here http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t55577-h...n_guide_3_1_a/. [top]IntroductionTheorycrafting Tools While discussing the various topics is useful, sometimes you need to crutch the numbers to see what item/enchant you should use. Your only option is to use Rawr. Acronyms There are many acronyms in WoW, and Paladins are doing their part to keep that true. For the new Paladins out there this is to help you not be totally confused while reading posts.
[top]StatsFor each stat I will try to demonstrate what 100 items points gives, which is equivalent to 5 epic quality Northrend gems. For most stats 1 item point is equal to 1 point in the stat. The exceptions are Spell Power (1 item point = 1.166 sp), Mp5 (1 item point = 0.5 Mp5) and Stamina (1 item point = 1.5 stamina). Intellect Intellect has received a huge boost with WotLK mechanics, and is now the best stat for Holy Paladins by far. Here is what 100 Intellect gives:
Spell Power Increases how much healing your spells do at a rate dependent on each spell, exact values are given in the spells section. FoL scales really well with Spell Power because it has a low mana cost, but gets more benefit from Spell Power than other 1.5sec spells. Once you get to higher gear levels its low amount of base healing won't really matter, since 75% of the healing it does is from Spell Power. 100 Item points gives you 120 Spell Power, which increases each FoL heal at level 80 by 134 and HL by 223. Haste Rating Increases how fast your heals cast, but they cost the same amount of healing per mana. 10% Spell Haste does not mean your spells cast 10% faster, rather it means in a given time period you will cast 10% more spells. So the cast time after haste is calculated by (Base Cast Time)/(1 + Spell Haste). The more haste you get the less cast time it will reduce, but it will increase how many spells you can cast by the same amount. It is important to note that all haste effects (Wrath of Air, Ret Aura, JotP, and haste rating) stack multiplicative. So with all of the raid buffs you need 20.6% haste from gear (676 haste rating) to get haste soft capped (50% haste is a 1 second spell GCD). Further haste will help Holy Light cast faster. Haste increases the chance that HL will reach your target in time, so it is the best throughput stat for HL focus. A FoL focused player should not gear past 676 haste. Critical Strike Rating Critical Heals end up healing for 50% more and cost 30% less mana, and 100 Spell Crit gives +2.17% crit rate at 80. Crit isn't as usually as strong as other healing stats, since the extra healing usually is overheal and Illumination's 30% less cost doesn't give the same mana return as the same item cost as Mp5. However, sometimes crit can help Glyph of HL and the FoL HoT become stronger. Note Intellect gives you 1/3 of the amount of Crit for the same item cost, while giving the before mentioned bonuses. Assume 45 Holy Light casts per minute (spamming with the haste soft cap with full raid buffs): Code:
1272 (base cost) * 45 (HLs per minute) * 0.3 (mana return) * 0.01 (1% more crit) * 5/60 (convert to Mp5) = 14.3325Mana per 5 seconds Gives you the specified amount of mana over 5 seconds, whether or not you have been casting a spell. This stat is not as good as intellect for returning mana. 100 item points will give you 50Mp5, which is 3600 mana over 6 minutes. Even though it is not as useful as intellect or haste, at least in most situations it is better than crit rating. [top]AbilitiesHoly Paladins have quite a few useful spells in their toolkit unlike the Classic/TBC Paladin. Holy Light With how much mana you can have now, because of Intellect and Divine Plea, this is your main spell that you can spam most of the fight. Holy Light receives 188.5% of spell power per cast with Healing Light. There are a lot of new mana reduction effects (Libram and GSoW) that if you have all them brings the HPM for HL and FoL very close. HL will very often overheal with how much we can cast it now, but that is nothing to be concerned with. Unless you are going OOM before the fight ends, it doesn't matter how much it overheals. Flash of Light This is normally used when mana is tight or there is not much is needed healing. It receives 113% of spell power per cast with Healing Light. Divinity will increase the healing by 5% which this spell needs all the +healing it can get. If you cast FoL on a target with SS buff (with IoL talent), it puts a HoT buff up equal to 100% of Flash's heal. This HoT double dips on benefits from healing multipliers such as Imp Devotion Aura, Glyph of Seal of Light, and the ICC Aura. Holy Shock With IoL your crits with Holy Shock makes FoL instant or your next Holy Light have a 20% increased crit chance. It receives 90.5% of spell power per spell cast. This is great a spell to use when you are moving and can't cast anything else, or the tank took a huge burst and they will likely die before you can get a Holy Light off. It is both worse HPM and HPS then Holy Light, so I do not use too much, besides those reasons. Beacon of Light This is the spell that we were given to help us deal with being able to heal multiple targets at the same time. It can be much better, or it can be worse, than other healer's AoE healing depending on the situation. The Beacon takes into account all healing, so it is very useful. It only works on Paladin healing abilities (ignoring Glyph of HL and trinkets). The common practice is to place the Beacon on main tank and go to raid. It can be a huge mana sink to keep it up, but it is very much worth it. However, don't feel like you need to have 100% up-time on it, sometimes the tank could die while you are refreshing the Beacon so be aware. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target and the healing transfer radius is 60 yards. BoL requires Line of Slight to heal. Here are some good strategies of different ways to use Beacon depending on the fight.
Sacred Shield First I will clarify how SS works, when you cast the spell on someone they gain a 30 (60 with DG) second buff. Nothing happens until the target takes damage, when they do they will take the full amount, but will gain a 6s (12s with DG) second buff and can only occur every 6 seconds. This new buff will absorb the next 500 + 75% of your Spell Power damage and then expire, while it is active it will also increase the crit rate of FoL by 50%. The SS buff causes FoL to add a HoT equal to FoL's heal. Divine Guardian was added in 3.1, and makes SS more useful, however a target can only have one SS buff at a time, so your best bet is to have each Holy Pally cast it on a separate tank. Avenging Wrath A 20% increase to healing but causes a 30sec blackout period with Bubble. This can be used while using Divine Plea to lessen the affects of 50% less healing, so instead you do 60% healing. Divine Plea This spell gives an insane amount of mana back, and makes Intellect an amazing stat. This was changed in 3.0.9 to be a 50% healing reduction, and requires smarter use because of it. You will in general be better served by using it during period of time of low tank damage, which easy to tell to predict on some fights and hard on others, instead of spamming it on cooldown. For best results, use Divine Plea in conjunction with tank cooldowns like Shield Wall. It is also useful to have a macro to easily remove your Divine Plea, if your tank takes some burst damage while it is up. Code:
#showtooltip Divine PleaDivine Favor This is unchanged with WotLK, but with IoL it warrants no longer being relegated to just a HL macro. Saving it to use with HS for when the tank gets a big burst can be useful. Don't worry too much if you forgot to use it. If you use DF + HL, then Shock right after, both spells will crit. Divine Illumination Try to save it for when you are going to be casting a lot of Holy Lights or have to renew Beacon. Do not let it sit off cooldown for too long since it is a potent mana saving tool. Lay on Hands Is significantly better to use in fights now, since it no longer drains all of your remaining mana as it did in Classic and TBC. It can be used to save a tank that needs a huge burst of healing or cast on yourself with Glyph of Divinity you will get 7800 mana, however as of 3.3, this ability will place Forbearance on the paladin if used on his or herself. When combined with the imp LoH talent, this will reduce the target's physical damage taken by 20% for a short time. Judgement of Wisdom/Judgement of Light A Holy Paladin needs to judge at least every minute. There are two main different strategies you can use for judging, you can either be trying to keep a 100% JotP up-time or to keep 100% up-time on the Judgement debuff. It costs a 1.5 second GCD per minute to keep JotP up and 4 GCDs per minute to keep JotP and Judgement debuff up. Either way with 15% extra haste you will be able to get more total healing spells cast even after using those GCDs. JoL is definitely worth keeping up since it heals 2% (2.1% with Divinity) of the attacker's health. If you have a Ret or Prot pally in the raid make sure they are casting a different Judgement than you. Since the Ret/Prot Pally will have a much more reliable uptime on their Judgement and sometimes you just can't spare the 1.5 second GCD (since it is a melee attack), it might be better for you to do JoL since 100% up-time JoW is a raid dps increase. Divine Sacrifice You can usually use this spell safety without bubbling since it breaks at 20% health. This spell is weak for raid healing on its own due to only helping at most 4 people, but when combined with DG it becomes very useful. This will last 10 seconds or if it is broken by damage if it is not canceled. Divine Guardian Divine Guardian will help mitigate 20% of all the damage taken by the raid for six seconds. If Divine Sacrifice ends early this effect will persist, so you can make use this macro: Code:
#showtooltip Hand of Salvation This gives 20% threat reduction over its duration. A dps should call for it when they are close to pulling aggro. Code:
#showtooltip Hand of SalvationHand of Sacrifice This is a good cooldown to use to help keep your tank/squishie raid member alive. Be careful, the target can take lot of damage which will be transferred to you. In 3.1 the amount of damage transferred is capped at your 100% of your health, so you may want to bubble when using this on the tank or have a heal ready for yourself because you could die otherwise. Hand of Protection It is good to use on raid member that gets aggro from a tank. Can also be used on tanks in some fights when you need to force a tank transition or to remove Bleeds on people, notably on Deathbringer Sarfang and Gormok the Impaler. Aura Mastery A solid one point talent. It is best used during fights with a lot of magic damage like on Twins during Vortex that is covered by our auras. It is off the GCD and doesn't cost any mana, so essentially 130 extra resistance, 600 armor, or more reflected damage for six seconds each time. Be aware that it doesn't improve the talented effect from Aura talents (like Improved Devotion Aura). It also affects Concentration Aura for silence immunity (also removes silence) and Crusader Aura for faster mount speed. Imp RF While this was designed for tanking, getting 6% less damage is one of the best raiding talents. Note if you pull aggro, then it is usually the tank's fault (with the exception when adds spawn away from the tank). [top]Holy Light vs. Flash of LightHoly Light Focus + Big mana pool; 40k+ with 245+ gear if you use mostly Int gems + Spam Holy Light for 2-4+ minutes without outside help + Divine Plea restores a ton of mana, 10K+ + Easier to play since you mostly focus on one heal and healing a tank via Beacon - Slighter slower healing - Sacred Shield absorbs less - The FoL HoT isn't too useful for HL focus Flash of Light Focus + All Heals are more sizable due to using more spell power gems + Sacred Shield absorbs more and FoL HoT is strong enough to be a useful tool + Flash of Light enables one to quickly top the raid's health off - 10k+ less mana than the Holy Light build - Mana pool will burn quickly if you don't mostly use FoL - Divine Plea restores less mana - Desire to keep 4/5 Tier 9 for the FoL HoT bonus - This healing focus is a poor idea if you are the only Holy Pally in a your raid. - Since you need to be constantly casting to deal with lower HPS, so Judgement debuff will have a lower up-time. [top]Casting MechanicsTo improve your HPS, you should always be casting (or waiting out a GCD after an instant). Anytime a spell ends, you should already be pressing the key trying to start your next spell (WoW processes events when you release the key). When you want maximize throughput, train yourself to start another spell regardless of what's going on, and you can move or cancel your current cast if necessary after you have another second to think. Speedy Actions (if you spam your keys) and Quartz/Castbars will help you know when to start pseudo spell queuing. [top]GemsIn general, I find that HL focus is best served by using all Brilliant (Intellect) gems and one Nightmare Tear, while FoL focus is served by matching the socket bonuses (so use Runed, Reckless, and Royal). Insightful Earthsiege Diamond (5% chance to restore 600 mana with a 15 second ICD and 21 Int). The proc is approximately 70Mp5, varying on your ratio of HL to FoL. This is the best meta you can use for PvE. Ember Skyflare Diamond may good on paper, but it will take 5,725 Int to make it competitive with Insightful. Yellow - Brilliant King's Amber for HL focus or Luminous Ametrine for FoL focus. Red - Luminous Ametrine for HL focus only if you want the socket bonus/active meta or Runed Cardinal Ruby for FoL focus. Blue - Dazzling Eye of Zul - is best option for HL paladin if they want the socket bonus/active meta or Royal Dreadstone for FoL focus. Prismatic - Nightmare Tear is unique-equipped prismatic gem that counts as one of every color and gives +10 all stats. This is the alternative that I prefer if you want to use 20 int gems in all sockets except for one reserved for the Tear. [top]Set Bonuses2 piece Tier 7 It is a very mediocre bonus, but notable for the increased chance to proc IoL. 4 piece Tier 7 This is an outstanding set bonus, it reduces Holy Light's cost by 5%. 2 piece Tier 8 This is also mediocre due to overhealing and being an inconsistent HoT. 4 piece Tier 8 In the optimal case this a huge increase to amount absorbed by Sacred Shield, but it requires the target to take damage twice within 4 seconds, and then again in the following 2 seconds to offer any advantage. So with tank's avoidance streaks it can have not as much of an impact in some circumstances. If a tank has a chance of dying between 4 to 6 seconds after being full, it can offer a whole additional proc. It is also really good in any fight that has persistent ticking aura, like Twins. 2 piece Tier 9 This is situational a decent bonus if your judgment is being used by your group and you don't Judge every 20 seconds. 4 piece Tier 9 This is an outstanding bonus for FoL focused Paladins, otherwise it is mediocre. 2 piece Tier 10 This makes DI into a useful healing increase cooldown. You can combine this with Divine Plea to help offset the penalty. 4 piece Tier 10 This is situational useful bonus. If you end up having to move and cast Shock often, this bonus will help you get back into casting HL faster. [top]LibramsLibram of Renewal This is a huge increase in healing output because of how much mana it saves. It reduces the cost of your Holy Light spell by almost 10%, so it is the best libram for HL focus that you can get even when defeating Arthas in Icecrown. Illumination works off of base mana, so you will still get the same amount of mana back from crits. Furious Gladiator's Libram of Justice This is outstanding for FoL focus and you can get upgraded versions if you have the required Arena rating. Libram of Veracity This is useful for more throughput over mana savings; a good time to use this item is for Valithria Dreamwalker if you go inside the portals. Libram of Blinding Light This is a useless libram, skip picking it up. [top]TrinketsHere are some notable trinkets, listed in ascending order of how Rawr thinks they are useful for a HL focused Paladin: Tears of the Vanquished Darkmoon Card: Greatness Pandora's Plea Sliver of Pure Ice Purified Lunar Dust Talisman of Resurgence The use can combined with Divine Plea to counter the penalty. Sliver of Pure Ice Solace of the Defeated Meteorite Crystal Solace of the Defeated [top]GlyphsPersonally I use Holy Light, Beacon of Light, and Seal of Wisdom for my glyphs. Here are all of the options you have currently: Glyph of Seal of Wisdom/Glyph of Seal of Light SoW is most of the time the better glyph, since you have a 15 ppm chance to get mana returned when Judging, Shield of Righteousness, and auto attacking and it makes all your heals 5% cheaper. Since SoW is ppm you get more procs with a slower weapon. If you need more throughput (such as FoL focus), use SoL. You will always want to use one of these two glyphs. Glyph of Holy Light It does not smart heal, but rather heals 5 random targets in range. This can be very effective at healing when the whole raid takes damage. It can do a substantial amount of healing in some fights, so I wouldn't go anywhere without it unless you spam FoL. Glyph of Beacon of Light This Glyph saves the cast of one BoL every 3 mins. Its values comes from saving a GCD every 3 mins, reduces the chance that BoL will end when you still need it but can't spare a GCD to refresh it. Taking 2-3 seconds to refresh Beacon/SS together is extremely dangerous since both are minute cooldowns with Divine Guardian. Glyph of Divinity If you cast LoH on yourself with this you will get double the mana returned for 7800 mana or 3900 mana if cast on someone else. This it great for fights where you are crunched on mana and don't need the burst heal/tank cooldown from a Lay on Hands. It is situational, since you will probably want to save LoH for burst "oh crap" healing. Note that casting LoH on yourself will cause Forbearance and LoH cannot be used on yourself if Forbearance is active. Glyph of Flash of Light Reduces the average cost of FoL by 1.5% and increases the average amount healed by 2.5%. This is a strong bonus for PvP and outstanding for FoL focus. Glyph of Holy Shock While Holy Shock can be a good spell, it isn't something you should use on cooldown. On fights with a lot of movement it can be worthwhile to use this Glyph, but that is situational. This is very powerful for PvP. Minor Glyphs Glyph of Lay on Hands - Very useful minor for Holy. Glyph of Blessing of Kings - You might need to rebuff Kings on someone who gets a battle rez, so this will save mana. Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom – If you ever cast single target Wisdom on yourself this is good to use. [top]ConsumablesPotions While you can only use 1 per fight, and you do have some choice about which that will be. Runic Mana Potion - The good old bland mana potion. Endless Mana Potion - The mana potion that never runs out (Alchemist only). Potion of Nightmares - This got changed from its former brethren, so that it lasts 6 seconds of being inactive and is not able be cleansed. This is an extra 1200 mana over Runic. Potion of Speed - This could be useful in some fights if you know there will be 15 seconds where you will need to maximize output. Well Fed These are the 4 relevant different buff types, but you can get different food that give the same benefit. Just pick them how you would your gems. Firecracker Salmon Imperial Manta Steak Mighty Rhino Dogs Spiced Wyrm Burger Flasks Flask of Distilled Wisdom - Still a solid option for a regen and throughput even though it is from Vanilla. Flask of Pure Mojo - Best option for regen. Flask of the Frost Wyrm - The best option for a throughput increase. Elixirs Guru's Elixir and Mighty Thoughts beats out Distilled Wisdom. Haste Elixir is another viable battle elixir. [top]EnchantsEnchant choices (from head to toe): Head - 50 sp 10 Mp5 or 50 Spell Power and 20 Critical Strike Rating Shoulder - 24 sp 8 Mp5 or 24 sp and 15 Critical Strike Rating Cloak – 23 Haste Chest - 10 to all stats or 250 Mana Bracers – 16 Intellect or 30 Spell Power Gloves – 28 Spell Power Legs – 50 Spell Power Shield - 25 Intellect Weapon - 30 Intellect or 63 Spell Power Boots – Run speed or 12 crit/hit or 7mp5 [top]ProfessionsListed are the benefits you get from being each profession and you must keep it to retain these benefits. Alchemy Mixology gives 47 Spell Power, 20 Intellect or 20 Mp5 depending on Flask used and you get double duration. Other conveniences: [Endless Mana Potion], Crazy Alchemist's Potion which is the same mana as Runic along with health and a random potion affect, and the ability to make your own uncut epic gems. In addition, you can use [Flask of the North] to gain 47 spell power if you don't want to use a normal flask. Blacksmithing Socket Glove/Socket Bracer - Gives you 40 Int or whatever stat/ranting you want via two additional gem sockets. Enchanting Enchant Ring - Greater Spellpowerx2 - Gives you 46 Spell Power. Engineering Hyperspeed Accelerators - This use effect can be used during Divine Plea to lessen the downside of Plea and for burst parts of encounter such as Phase 3 Festergut. Other useful tools: Nitro Boosts gives 24 crit rating and a 5s burst of speed and 27 spell power to cloak instead of Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed. Assuming you use a Mana Potion Injector, Engineers will get 25% more out of Runic Mana Potions used inside the Injector. Inscription Master's Inscription of the Crag or Master's Inscription of the Storm - 46 Spell Power increase over The Sons of Hodir exalted version. Jewelcrafting Dragon's Eye Gems - Gives you 42 int or additional item points with the stats or rating of your choice via three dragon's eye gems. Leatherworking Fur Lining - Spell Power - Offers you a 46 spell power upgrade over the regular spell power enchant. Tailoring Darkglow Embroidery - gives 44 Mp5 over time Or Lightweave Embroidery - gives 73 sp over time instead of Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed. Skinning Master of Anatomy - 40 crit rating. Mining Toughness - 60 stamina. Herbalism Lifeblood - Small self-only HoT that is off the GCD. [top]Add-onsA good UI for a healer is essential, since you can be much more effective at healing than using the default UI. Here are some suggestions for add-ons: Grid (Raid Frames) Grid is a raid frame addon that I highly recommend for any healer. It makes it much easier to see the health of everyone in your raid, and is very customizable to fit your needs. GridStatusRaidDebuff can show raid's fight specific debuffs. How to setup Grid or other addons is out of the scope of this thread. Clique (Click Casting) With a click casting add-on you assign a mouse button (like middle mouse) to a spell, and when you press that button on a unit frame it casts that spell at the unit. I like using this with Cleanse, Hand spells, and Flash of Light, because I find I have better reaction times with it. Some people like assigning a button (or key-button combination) to all their healing spells. PallyPower (Blessing Assignments) This will make your life keeping everyone blessed with the proper blessings much easier. While I am sure a lot of us have had their frustrations with PallyPower, but it is significantly better then not using it. An alternative is ZOMGBuffs. ClassTimer (Spell Timers) Keeps track of the time left on all of your buffs like Beacon of Light, SS, and JotP. Being able to see the time left on these spells at a glance makes it significantly easier to keep them up. There are alternatives such as clcbpt Pally Timer Tracker. For other useful add-ons, see http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t79625-r...l_facerolling/. [top]Talent BuildsHere are a few sample PvE builds that will give anyone a good starting point and are by no means the only builds you can use. Holy with Divine Guardian (52/17/2) One can get 3/3 improved Devotion Aura (useful if no Resto Druid or Prot Pally are in your group and giving 600 more armor is great for tanks) dropping 1/2 LoH and losing Benediction for cheaper instant cast spells. Holy with Ret (52/5/14) This build is good for heroics, but doesn't have as much tank or raid healing potential because you would lose of Divine Guardian. PvP Holy (54/17), While this thread is for only for PvE discussion, here is a sample Arena spec. [top]Rawr SettingsThis settings found on the Option Tab will help your Rawr give you a better read on what items you should upgrade. This is my setting so you should tweak it towards your playstyle. Burst Scale: 30% Activity: 90% Holy Shock: 5% FoL: 10% Holy Light 90% Sacred Shield uptime: 100% Fight Length - 5 minutes GHL targets: 2.5 Maintain Judgement and maintain JotP are checked Mana Potion: 0 LoH is not used on self Divine Plea: 2 minute cooldown Replenishment uptime: 95% Beacon of Light up-time: 100% Effectiveness (of BoL): 40% [top]ToGC25 Healing StrategiesThese are based on Osseric's post in this thread. Beasts P1
[top]ICC25 Normal Healing StrategiesMarrowgar
[top]Ruby Sanctum Normal Healing StrategiesHalion • Who to heal? Beacon tank and heal people with Consumption, stand in the physical realm in phase 3, where raid damage is much lighter • When to Plea? Anytime in phase 1, avoid in phase 3 when Corporeality is above 50% • What to watch out for? Constant movement in phase 2; Tank damage rises massively in phase 3 if Corporeality hits 70% • Cool tricks: Should be able to stand in melee throughout the whole of phase 2. Consumption effect can be Cleansed, even though it shows as a curse. Use Fire Aura for the physical realm. [top]Frequently Asked QuestionsQ: How does the ICC buff affect me? The 5%-30% buff adds to healing by a percentage but what is interesting is also affects Sacred Shield. That spell could use some more power, so as the buff gets larger at least Sacred Shield should be worth justifying a higher up-time. Q: What is the healing rotation? As most of you know by now, there is no rotation for any healing class. You have to make quick decisions and a situation can change in a millisecond. An excellent healer can predict incoming damage and from that start healing before the damage actually hits. Q: Should I use Flash of Light or Holy Light? It's always situational and you have to learn yourself. However one thing that I could improve on is that I spam holy light and could use Flash more often to get up the FoL HoT on the tank and top off raid members using FoL instead of HL, and could save mana and doing the same amount of healing. Which spell to use also depends on the healer setup, for example if your guild have amazing druids, it makes raid healing via FoL spam a lot less useful and leaves you to focus on tank healing with HL and Beacon. Also there is discussion at http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t84922-h...Flash_of_Light Q: Which of these two items are better for me? A: Use Rawr, it will be able to help answer it. If for some reason you think Rawr is wrong, post here in detail about why you think that way. In general, haste/mp5 pieces are the best itemized for Holy Paladins and in some cases Mail or Leather will be better itemized than Plate. While Tier 10 does not have haste/mp5 itemization, that haste/crit or mp5/crit are decent to use if it is a more than 10 item levels above what you have. Q: How should I gem my gear? A: Short answer, Intellect. Long answer, a starting Holy Paladin should gearing up with spell power so your heals will keep your group alive. When picking stats, you should shore up your weakness. If you are spamming HL and people die before it lands, then you need more haste. If you are using mostly Flash of Light and the tank is dying, try using more spell power or switching to HL and focusing on getting more Intellect. If you are running out of mana, try to use items/enchants that favor Mp5, Int, and to lesser extent crit rating rather than focusing on haste or spell power. Try things out and see what works for best for you. Q: Should I get this higher item level item over my current item? A: In most cases, yes. I would get the minimum of between 600-676 Haste and then focus on getting more Mp5 and Haste. For HL focus, if a piece of gear provides an Int upgrade (20 or more Int and/or extra sockets) then upgrade to it even if it has 0 Mp5. For FoL focus, get the highest item level healing item to get the most spell power. Work on getting the Tier 10 Helm and Shoulders. [top]Topics for Discussion* Improved healing strategies for ICC Heroic encounters and Arthas. * "What am I doing wrong?/What could I be doing better?" type questions that include WoL reports. [top]Version History
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Nice Guide in general for the new paladins, good write up. |
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Really positive and good for the community that a guide like this exists again. After reading through it I have some minor additions.
-There is a typo in the "haste rating" section. SHould be 676 not 6767. -Maybe add that you now need IoL to generate the HoT on the target with SS. -Under divine favor you could add that its possible to cast HL with divine favor and immediately follow up with a holy shock to guarantee a crit on both. - Under "lay on hands" add that lay on hands is now also used as a tank cooldown due to the changed to Imp LoH. - "Judgements of Wisdom/Light" could be updated to reflect that JoL can now be judged by all paladins specs with no apparent benefit. You could also add something about SoW and how it is amazing mana regen. Meleeing mobs/bosses or judging from range to regen mana as judging counts as a melee attack. - Under "Librams" you could update the deadly libram to relentless libram. - Under "enchants" there is a lot to add. Chest can be enchanted with 250 mana, bracers with 16 int, gloves with 10 crit, boots with 12hit/12crit. Enchants for shield and weapon seem to be missing and for weapon it would be both 63 sp or 30 int. - Under "consumables" depending on server economy using the elixir combination is sometimes cheaper even when progressing. It is on my server at least. A lot of additional info could be added, and I'll gladly post suggestions later. |
Great post for beginners and fun to read as a refresher. Just a couple suggestions / fixes I would make:
- Link to the Flask of Pure Mojo does not display what it does - The trinkets section is lacking. Pandora's Plea, Meteorite Crystal, and Solace of the Defeated are just three I can think of off the top of my head that belong here. You also may want to rank them in some way (open to debate/preference, but for example 258 Solace is considered BIS.) - You may wish to add a section on mana management, ie. judging to return mana, delaying casts to get melee procs, and knowing the proper times to plea. Mana management is a significant factor that distinguishes good paladins from bad ones. - This is more a point of theorycraft than anything else, but at a certain level of gearing (particularly with new ICC gear), int levels have become obscenely high. Since the mana cost of HL is the same in T10 as it was in T7, I would argue that gearing for regen (ie. mp5 over crit) is not as black and white as this guide makes it out to be. Crit provides bonuses not affected by overheal, such as bigger HL splash numbers, FoL numbers, and all numbers during DP useage. I am well-geared so this may be an ivory tower observation, but I rarely find myself needing to plea anymore (at least not during stressful segments of the fights) and as such have been leaning more towards throughput than regen, even in ToCG25. This will most likely change once ICC hard modes are out, though. Thanks for putting this together! |
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While the cost for HL has remained static, the need to use it has grown stronger with each iteration of raiding. With this in mind, I will likely continue stacking Int on my gear until the actual hard mode fights are released and we can see the benefits and costs of doing so. |
Fantastic guide, but I'm a little surprised [Libram of Veracity] isn't listed, especially for HL spammers because of its SP proc. I would like to see it listed as an option, especially since the SP proc affects all spells, unlike the PVP libram, and the uptime is reasonable.
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I am in a smaller guild which slowly progresses through 10 man content, and healed the new Heroic 5 man content yesterday. This is the first time I've healed on my paladin in a long time, as I am the MT for my guild and don't get many opportunities, but lots and lots of gear that others can't use.
The damage from those runs was very different than I am used to, as the tank took less damage than expected, and the party took more. In this event, does it make more sense to BoL myself, and hope HL glyph takes care of most party-wide burst damage while using FoL - or - to BoL the tank and focus on party healing while occasionally topping off the tank? Recount had my HPS at around 2,500+ for whole instance, and as high as 3,300+ on some boss encounters. Wondering if this is acceptable with my current gear, so that I know whether my healing could improve because of me, or just by upgrading my gear. Additionally, at around 22,000 mana (buffed), I found myself taking mana breaks after every pull with more than 3 mobs. Is this normal with the new content, keeping in mind my gear is far from perfect? Thanks for all the info. |
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Yeah, I know the one trinket is just terrible, but when gearing an off-spec, its strange what you find to be acceptable sometimes, and I have checked the OP regarding chants and gems, but currently am experiencing the same problem, namely my guild needs me to gear my prot spec first, so my holy spec has to take a back seat.
One thought about this thread, maybe a separate section on useful macros? I know that I read two of them in the original post. I'm not terribly experienced with healing, but I would imagine something similar to the UH DK gargoyle macro for Holy Shock might make sense, and maybe some other users have additional ones. |
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I personally would find it more viable than [Libram of Blinding Light], the stacking SP buff on the spell we hardly use (which is listed). EDIT: It's been added as an option. Yay! Thank you! |
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If you want a shock macro + favor (does not trigger a GCD) macro: #showtooltip Holy Shock /cast Divine Favor /cast Holy Shock |
Thanks!
Would it be overkill to link it to trinkets as well (assuming they would have some effect)? #showtooltip Holy Shock /use 13 /use 14 /cast Divine Favor /cast Holy Shock Kind of want to try this, see how big the incoming heals are. Will reply with some numbers after testing. |
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Basically, I agree that Rawr is a great too for looking at gear, but no matter how you set it up it isn't an accurate tool for breaking down the values of two different items. We aren't a DPS class -- our effectiveness cannot be boiled down into one big 4 digit number and ranked in that manner. We're just not simple enough to model, and therefore should automatically be dubious of anything that does attempt to model us. |
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