Holy Paladin- The Good, The Bad, and the Unexplainable!(PvE)

[Yorell]

As it currently stands, there isnt many viable or awesome class guides out for holy paladins, mostly due to the complexity of there not being any real set BETTER way to do it. If you go ask Mistar Robot, he'll tell you something like "STACK MASTERY! STACK MASTERY YOU FOO!" but that isnt completely correct.

Stats go like this for Holy Paladins:

Intel = Spirit > Mastery = Haste > Crit

Mastery- Illuminated Healing: Places a shield on the target for __% healed. The % is increased by mastery.

**Note: The procs for Illuminated Healing are separate for EACH Holy Paladin. The procs will also stack up to a max of 260k or somewhere in the vicinity. Need to have some more trials for the exact number.

The main reason that you don't stack Mastery off the bat, is because your heals will be hella slow, and I mean slow. You'll find you're constantly being late on healing someone or perhaps your heals will look really low, since all your heals are hitting after everyone else's.

The first thing you go for, is a balance between Haste and Spirit. And no, there is no magic numbers to be at, no soft haste caps or spirit caps. Here's where it gets complicated, as you increase in haste, your endurance drops (AKA: Time till you go oom). The more haste you have, the faster your heals go off, and the more mana you use. Consequently, spirit is the opposite of that, it increases your endurance. The aim with these two opposites is to keep them at managable levels. Meaning, if you're in a fight, healing normally, you might go oom by the end of the fight. There are of course exceptions to this, as when something unexpected occurs and you pop cds and start spamming like wild to heal everyone. But you can also factor that into your play style as well, and keep your haste low enough to have excess mana.

If you're thinking "Oh, thats not very hard. I could stack what ever I wanted and manage my own mana myself!" you are dead wrong. I've been healing since Wrath, and I have tried that idea many times, and let me tell you, it doesnt work. Either you conserve too much mana all the time and the raid dies, or you tunnel vision healing to keep everyone alive and before you know it, you're oom. Balancing these two stats is the best thing you can do as a healer.

And since spirit is no longer a secondary stat, it only increases by getting new gear, gems, or enchants, meaning the easiest way to manage the balance, is through the reforging of Haste. Secondly, you also want spirit to increase as much as you can through enchants etc, You can EASILY out do spirit with haste, as spirit is harder to aquire or doesnt increase as much with gear. You NEVER want to decrease spirit. Unless under exceptional circumstances.

Once this balance is down for you, then you can go ahead and stack Mastery. From a number crunching stand point, Mastery is better than all secondary stats, due to the fact that it increases our healing done by a flat rate. But only if you are able to keep healing and get heals off. Which in all healers minds, should make mastery second behind haste. Everybody knows that theres alot more factors when you actually play compared to what people figure out on paper.

IMPORTANT

Most Holy Paladin's aim for a "soft" cap of 25% haste in raids. This is due to the fact that at 25% Eternal Flame gains an extra heal over time tick. If you use Sacred Shield, it might be worth while for you to aim for the 30% in raid, as you gain an extra tick of Sacred Shield.

Eternal Flame gains its first extra tick at 5% haste and gains another every 10% after.

Sacred Shield gains its first extra tick at 10% haste and a another tick every 10% after.

Its also important to note, that everything talked about above this important section still applies and is important to keep in mind, as these are only "soft" caps, and can be passed.

REFORGING

When ever haste is too high, reforge it to mastery.
When ever Haste is too low, steal it from crit, if no crit is avaliable, steal it from mastery.
When ever you don't want to change your haste, reforge crit to mastery.

GEMMING

Yellow: Intel+Haste or Intel+Mastery
Red: Intel
Blue: Spirit
Orange: Intel+Haste or Intel+Mastery
Green: Spirit+Mastery or Spirit+Haste
Purple: Intel+Spirit
Meta: Revitalizing Primal Diamond (432 Spirit +3% Crit Effect)

ENCHANTS

Helm: No Longer Exists
Shoulder: Greater Crane Wing Inscription (200 Int + 100 Crit)
Cloak: +180 Intel
Chest: +200 Spirit
Bracers: +180 Intel or +170 Mastery if the first is unaffordable
Gloves: +170 Haste or Mastery
Belt: Prismatic Socket: Intel
Legs: Greater Cerulean Spellthread (+285 Int + 165 Crit)
Boots: +140 Mastery and Run Speed or +175 Haste
Rings: +160 Int (Enchanters Only)
Weapon: Jade Spirit or Windsong if first is unaffordable
Offhand: +165 Int

SPELLS

Holy Light: Cast when ever not casting Divine Light or Holy Shock
Divine Light: Use to heal big damage, most used heal.
Holy Shock: Use when ever off cd to generate Holy Power.
Word of Glory/Eternal Flame: Use for healing medium to low damage, also through it on someone as an emergency quick heal if Holy Shock is down.
Flash of Light: Emergency fast heal, Eats through mana, almost never used.
Light of Dawn: Amazing AoE heal, use when ever theres aoe damage.
Holy Radiance: Cast on an ally or self, Heals all allies within 10 yards. Only effective when there are three or more people within the 10 yards. Also triggers Daybreak
Daybreak: Passive spell effect. After casting Holy Radiance, your Holy Shock heals all allies within 10 yards of the target for the amount of original healing done, spread to all targets. Cast immediately after using Holy Radiance on allies that are grouped.

COOLDOWNS

Hand of Purity(Talent): Use when ever someone has a dot on them to reduce damage, also reduces all damage by 10%. Useful as an emergency Damage Reduction CD.
Hand of Sacrifice: Useful CD for when ever a single target is going to take massive damage. Make sure you have ample health.
Hand of Freedom: Pretty useless in raids. Rarely helpful depending on situation.
Hand of Protection: Most used Hand. Stops all Physical Damage including Bleeds. Also removes boss threat. Use on non tanks to reduce damage or save non tanks from adds. NEVER CAST ON TANKS UNLESS ASKED.
Hand of Salvation: Cast if someone, not the tank, has aggro on the boss. Rarely used.
Devotion Aura: Reduces all MAGIC damage by 20%. Use as a raid wide cd for bosses that use big magic damage moves.
Divine Plea: Use on CD to regain 12% of total Mana. Best used with a priest's Divine Hymn.
Guardian of Ancient Kings: Healing CD. Useful all around. Great single target and AoE as long as single target heals are ONLY used. Also increases haste by 10% per stack gained, to a max of 50%. Recommend using only Divine Light while it is up and even popping Divine Favor or Avenging Wrath during emergencies.
Avenging Wrath: Use when needed. Great all around cd. No Limitations or Drawbacks.
Divine Favor: Increases crit and haste by 20%. Use when needed. Beware running oom with increased haste.
Lay on Hands: Use when needed. Combined with the glyph gives you 10% of your maximum Mana.

SEALS

Always use Seal of Insight, ALWAYS. There is no reason what so ever to use any of the others. Using any other seal reduces Haste, Healing, and Mana regen.

TALENTS

See Kaz's Post Below.

But I also want to note, in my humble opinion, in the third tier talents Eternal Flame vastly out weighs Sacred Shield due to versitlity. Eternal Flame effectively allows you to heal with multiple hots out across the raid, similar to druid healing, and also allows you to effectively stack Illuminated Healing, our mastery, on players. It provides and maintains a nice buffer zone for large amounts of damage.

Secondly, last tier, Holy Prisim was not liked by some Holy paladins due to a tendency that the heals cast by it sometimes targeted pets. As of 5.3 this will be fixed, making Holy Prisim the best choice for fights with lots of movement or very little stacking. Meanwhile, Light's Hammer still trumps Holy Prisim IF you stack and use the Hammer EVERY minute. Any time where your last tier talent is sitting unused should be considered a healing loss.

GLYPHS

Glyphs for Holy Paladins are all based on your play style. Choose them in accordance with it. The only glyph that should never be taken is Illumination. After a relatively low amount of required spirit, you loose mana regen. That being said, it is perfect for those who are not 90 and for those that just hit 90. After getting any kind of gear, I would recommend removing the glyph.

It should also be noted that Glyph of Divine Plea is almost a must at higher levels. As the 5 second cast time is effected by haste and and your healing is not reduced by 12% for 9 seconds.



If you have any questions please PM me or Whisper Yorell/Asten in game. I'm sure Deinari will also be happy to answer any questions.

[Yorell]

By the way, this is all open to debate, if you think I'm wrong, then voice it!

[Deinari]

[Yorell]

AH HA! Glad you caught that . I updated it.

[Deinari]

Also, your talent section is pussy.

Tier 1:
I like Speed of Light because I like having a sprint to GTFO real fast if I need to. For raiding, its been especially useful plus it makes you look fabulous. Long Arm of the Law is generally sucky because sometimes there's not a target to Judgement. And Pursuit of Justice is roughly of the same usefullness as SoL, I just like it less.


Tier 2:
This tier is the garbage CC tier. Unlikely to bring a whole lot of unique utility to bring to your raid.

Tier 3:
Eternal Flame is, in my opinion, the best choice. Because 1. Selfless Healer is bullshit, since to make it worthwhile we'd have to Judgement x3 otherwise we'd go oom using Flash of Light so much. While Eternal Flame is just WoG + a HoT, costing zero mana. and 2. It keeps Illuminated Healing from falling off the Eternal Flame target through its heal-over-time.

Sacred Shield is /okay/ and perhaps superior for some fights (like Blade Lord and Amber Shaper, perhaps Garalon too for Pheromones) if you need something to prevent damage.


Tier 4:
This is the tier I swap around the most. I take Hand of Purity for fights where there are annoying ass DoTs (usually combined with the Sacred Shield talent). Otherwise, for regular healing fights, I take Unbreakable Spirit because I use [Glyph of Divinity] and this talent means that in a long fight I can use Lay on Hands /twice/ at least, if I play my cards right, which I'll undoubtably need for at least the mana gain.

Tier 5:
Definitely preference based here. I pick Holy Avenger, because it can heal for loads in a controlled way. Sanctified Wrath doesn't seem super great, I've never tested it myself so I could be wrong. And Divine Purpose is just generally too unreliable to be as awesome as it could be, though it has saved my raid's ass quite a few times. (Light of Dawn x 7, woot!)

Tier 6:
Here, I think depends on raid positioning for the fight in question. Stack a lot? Take Light's Hammer. Spread out loosely around the boss? Take Holy Prism. Execution Sentence is just blah, since its just blah healing to a single target (lame).

I generally take Light's Hammer, just because Holy Prism is a prissy little bitch about positioning and for some reason likes to prioritize pets over players which = wasted heals.




Over all though, yeah, talents are more "personal preferance" now. So experiment. Find what works for you

[Anteres]

Are there any major changes to this with the 5.3 changes?

[Deinari]

The biggest change for Hpallies, was how they changed Daybreak.

Daybreak is a passive, that activates after casting Holy Radiance. It used to cause your next Holy Shock to heal another party/raid member for X amount.

Now, though. "After casting Holy Radiance, your next Holy Shock will also heal other allies within 10 yards of the target for an amount equal to 75%/150% of the original healing done, divided evenly among all targets. Stacks up to 2 times."

the TLDR; version is that our AoE heals got better. I haven't been playing my pally at all lately, but I dont see this changing a whole lot about the healing rotation.

[Yorell]

They nerfed mastery by 2% and thats slightly wrong Kaz,

"•Daybreak is now a stackable effect with a duration of 10 seconds, stacks up to 2 times, and causes the next Holy Shock to also heal other allies within 10 yards of the target for an amount equal to 75%/150% of the original healing done. Daybreak no longer incorrectly hits the primary target of the Holy Shock."

Its no longer spread evenly among all targets, it literally heals all allies within the 10 yard range for the actual amount healed.

In other words, MASSIVE aoe heal boost, as long as the raid is stacking. Which in turn is why they nerfed the mastery to account for the increase.

[Deinari]

Ah, well there we go. AoE boost and small mastery nerf. All in all changes nothing major about rotation, though.

I couldn't quite remember what the old Daybreak tooltip was :P I haven't been playing my pally at all since 5.2 hit.

[Rodcet]

I dont see you mention anything about Clemency in tier 4 talents. Its basically a necessity if you want to try and 1 tank a fight, and there are a few where 1 tanking is really helpful.

[Yorell]

I just want to post here and state, Kaz was right. The patch notes I linked are not the same as in the game. Daybreak still heals for 75/150% divided evenly between all targets in range.

I would also like to note that all heals that are transfered to your Beacon of Light DO NOT apply your mastery to the beacon. So in reality when it says you're getting 50% of your heals to the beacon, you're actually getting less. Probably around the 35%-40% mark from my guessing.


And lastly, I make no mention of Clemency due to the fact that the number of one tankable fights is rather low in Throne. And the precision that is required in actually making the use of Hand of Protection on a tank is massive. The tank needs to have a macro ready to instantly remove the Hand, and to taunt the boss in the same moment. Otherwise melee dps die instantly. From what I've seen, its better to just do the fight with two tanks than die for hours trying to perfect the way of doing it. And if you find your dps really is that low, then you can spend the hours wiping attempting to get the system right and pray the boss doesnt one shot a melee.

I seriously recommend getting more gear and perhaps looking at your dps rotations, glyphs and everything else before thinking of attempting something like that.