[HOLY DPS] Leveling, Questing, and DPSing as a Holy Paladin

[Mikkah]

Update: I have added some comments in the string. The purpose of this thread is not to debate Ret vs Prot vs Holy DPS, the purpose is to discuss increasing Holy DPS in leveling, questing, and in dungeon groups.

I thought I would raise a new topic for the Legion Holy Paladin since we have beat the Holy Paladin healing issues like a dead horse and we have little feedback from Blizzard (yet).

We will all be doing a lot of dps during leveling and during ongoing World Quests. We recently got a single target dps buff. Has anyone analyzed and wrote a holy dps guide? If so, feel free to link to the rest of us.

Here are a few ideas from my experience:

1. DPS boosts: Take the Crusaders Might talent at level 15 to increase number of HS. Take Holy Avenger and Sanctified Wrath talents at level 75 and 90. Take Virtues of the Light and Shock Treatment in the Artifact tree.
2. Decrease Damage: Take Aura of Devotion at level 60, and Knight of the Silver Hand in the Artifact tree.
3. Use HS, CS, and Judgement along with Consecration. This leaves a gap in our "rotation" at times based on my experience. Use dps boosts on cooldown.
4. Question - which secondary stats to focus on? Crit then Vers/Haste? Mastery does not increase dps, only healing.
5. Obtain dps trinkets such as Horn of Valor. What other trinkets?

http://legion.wowhead.com/item=13364...lor&bonus=1826 (Halls of Valor)

6. Use the followers to boost dps, and eventually use Lothraxion and his stuns/dps increase as the primary dps following when questing in the world. Note - you can use add items to his slots to gather more Order Resources with each WQ.

Here is an excellent Legion Holy Paladin guide: http://www.wowhead.com/guide=4121/le...-paladin-guide

[Kakera]

Or go Ret and do double the damage with half the effort.

[RohanV]

Or go Ret and do double the damage with half the effort.

But don't you have to choose one artifact first? I assume you'll be choosing the Holy one first. Do you need to be in Holy spec to level it up?

[Mikkah]

But don't you have to choose one artifact first? I assume you'll be choosing the Holy one first. Do you need to be in Holy spec to level it up?

Based on my experience in Beta, it will take several months to fully "level" your primary artifact. Any AP put into the 2nd or 3rd artifact will take away from your primary weapon. So it is unrealistic to level two weapons at once. The Q&A today described how how Artifact Knowledge will eventually allow you to more rapidly level a 2nd or 3rd weapon but that would be in month 2+. So Holy Paladin's will be be leveling The Silver Hand first, and it remains to be seen how much DPS we will do will a strong Holy Weapon vs a weak Ret or Prot weapon. That is what I am exploring in this thread.

[Dakara]

Holy Paladins actually appear to be rather Tanky when solo. Devo Aura for example, is a flat 20% DR when solo... not bad!

Compared to other Healers, we also seem to have a bit more Damage potential from the Artifact and Talents simply due to Holy Shock being Damage & Healing. Stat wise, Crit + Versatility would appear to be the way to go, along with DPS trinkets.

For those with plenty of time to maintain multiple artifacts then I suppose you could swap to Ret, personally I don't have time nor desire to level 2 Artifacts at once. I'll maximize one then work on another. As such, the ability to Solo in a Healing spec is something I'm looking at quite closely.

Resto Druids probably have an advantage due to the Affinity Tier, but Holy Paladins are looking pretty good. Can even swap Talents around for AoE or Single Target damage.

[CloudedInSanity]

Based on my experience in Beta, it will take several months to fully "level" your primary artifact. Any AP put into the 2nd or 3rd artifact will take away from your primary weapon. So it is unrealistic to level two weapons at once. The Q&A today described how how Artifact Knowledge will eventually allow you to more rapidly level a 2nd or 3rd weapon but that would be in month 2+. So Holy Paladin's will be be leveling The Silver Hand first, and it remains to be seen how much DPS we will do will a strong Holy Weapon vs a weak Ret or Prot weapon. That is what I am exploring in this thread.

I think this thread is a testament to how misinformed people are going into this expansion. People that haven't played it or done research are going to be so far behind those that have, because there are so many things to do and the order in which you do them matters, lots of people will be overwhelmed.

On the subject of this thread. Please don't level Holy. Go Prot or Ret, Holy for leveling is beyond horrible. There are no negative impacts from taking your Prot/Ret weapons first since you get all of them at 102 regardless, and you are not forced to put artifact power into a weapon you don't plan on using.

[Dakara]

I think this thread is a testament to how misinformed people are going into this expansion. People that haven't played it or done research are going to be so far behind those that have, because there are so many things to do and the order in which you do them matters, lots of people will be overwhelmed.

On the subject of this thread. Please don't level Holy. Go Prot or Ret, Holy for leveling is beyond horrible. There are no negative impacts from taking your Prot/Ret weapons first since you get all of them at 102 regardless, and you are not forced to put artifact power into a weapon you don't plan on using.

*sigh*

That might be the final nail in the coffin for my Paladin. I love the Pally, but I despise Ret with a passion. Ever since I quit raiding in Cata, I spend 75% of my time in Ret even though Holy is my "mainspec".

Healing, worse than tanking, is a very "group only spec". As a Progression raider it was always my role of choice and that was fine, raiding was my passion. As a "filthy casual" these days, so much time is spent out in the world, that it feels overly punishing to main a healer, the specs useless in Tanaan (for example).

Legion raised my hopes that for once, I could maintain one spec as a healer and do it all. Like Tanks/DPS can. Perhaps I'll wander over to the Druid boards and see how their Affinity talents are working out....

[k1dsmoke]

Based on my experience in Beta, it will take several months to fully "level" your primary artifact. Any AP put into the 2nd or 3rd artifact will take away from your primary weapon. So it is unrealistic to level two weapons at once. The Q&A today described how how Artifact Knowledge will eventually allow you to more rapidly level a 2nd or 3rd weapon but that would be in month 2+. So Holy Paladin's will be be leveling The Silver Hand first, and it remains to be seen how much DPS we will do will a strong Holy Weapon vs a weak Ret or Prot weapon. That is what I am exploring in this thread.

This isn't really true. There are several AP item types that do not scale with your Artifact Knowledge. Putting the items that do not scale into an alternate Artifact becomes very worthwhile after you hit level 14 or so on your main artifact. There's not much point in putting 10 or 20 AP items into your main Artifact when you need 30k, 40k, 50k and more to reach one level. Relying on your scaling AP items and dumping your non scaling items into alt artifacts is a far superior use.

- - - Updated - - -

*sigh*

That might be the final nail in the coffin for my Paladin. I love the Pally, but I despise Ret with a passion. Ever since I quit raiding in Cata, I spend 75% of my time in Ret even though Holy is my "mainspec".

Healing, worse than tanking, is a very "group only spec". As a Progression raider it was always my role of choice and that was fine, raiding was my passion. As a "filthy casual" these days, so much time is spent out in the world, that it feels overly punishing to main a healer, the specs useless in Tanaan (for example).

Legion raised my hopes that for once, I could maintain one spec as a healer and do it all. Like Tanks/DPS can. Perhaps I'll wander over to the Druid boards and see how their Affinity talents are working out....

Just wait and try it out. Leveling and doing 5 mans Holy Paladins were able to keep up with my damage very often. I ran into one who was doing 150k and healing on 5 man bosses while I was doing 175k. I'm sure they do not have the sustain, but they can be bursty. You may not kill things as quick as Ret, and at Max level you will have a tough time with mobs, but typically leveling shouldn't be a big issue, especially if you are spamming Dungeons to get gear while leveling.

[Dakara]

Just wait and try it out. Leveling and doing 5 mans Holy Paladins were able to keep up with my damage very often. I ran into one who was doing 150k and healing on 5 man bosses while I was doing 175k. I'm sure they do not have the sustain, but they can be bursty. You may not kill things as quick as Ret, and at Max level you will have a tough time with mobs, but typically leveling shouldn't be a big issue, especially if you are spamming Dungeons to get gear while leveling.

Yea, but leveling is only the beginning. Perhaps I set my hopes too high, but was hoping healers wouldn't be left behind in World content at max level.

With Artifacts I'm going to focus heavily on one spec, and looks like that wont be a healer. Not the end of the world I guess.

[k1dsmoke]

Yea, but leveling is only the beginning. Perhaps I set my hopes too high, but was hoping healers wouldn't be left behind in World content at max level.

With Artifacts I'm going to focus heavily on one spec, and looks like that wont be a healer. Not the end of the world I guess.

It really is not that hard to level 2 or even 3 Artifacts at once; as I stated earlier there are two types of AP items, non-scaling and scaling.

I'm sitting on Beta right now at 845 ilvl, Ashbringer at level 21 and Truthguard at level 16; I have only put shitty non-scaling items into Truthguard. You get AP items from all sorts of things. You can feel sorry for yourself and wanting to pick a healer, but it really won't be hard if you want to maintain two.

[Weir]

Healer artifact traits increase healing, but not damage. The only thing that increases damage in the healing artifact tree is the bonus +1% damage you get every time a trait is unlocked. Totally maxed out the holy artifact gives +34% damage. That means that if holy does 34% less damage than ret with no artifact power in either weapon you will have to completely max out holy before you break even in your soloing speed. My bet is that even if you want to level holy first, you'll be better off using your ret spec with zero traits unlocked than soloing as holy.

[Dakara]

It really is not that hard to level 2 or even 3 Artifacts at once; as I stated earlier there are two types of AP items, non-scaling and scaling.

I'm sitting on Beta right now at 845 ilvl, Ashbringer at level 21 and Truthguard at level 16; I have only put shitty non-scaling items into Truthguard. You get AP items from all sorts of things. You can feel sorry for yourself and wanting to pick a healer, but it really won't be hard if you want to maintain two.

Yea I hear where your coming from. Difficulty isn't the issue, nor is feeling sorry for myself... truth is, after 12 years of WOW I simply cbf with Offspecs/Alts anymore. Just want to play one class, one spec, and keep my hand in the game without repeating anything. Once my Artifact is leveled I wont be going out of my way to earn Artifact power.

If I'm going use a DPS spec for world content then I may aswell use it for everything.... but that spec wont be Ret.

[frmorrison]

I plan to mainly play Holy, but I will level as Ret since it does more dps and is more fun for leveling. It is not hard to get rank 13 in each artifact, and that gives you a good portion of the abilities.
My plan is get Ret artifact at 100 and buy the first rank, get Holy at 102 and buy the first rank, buy ranks 2-13 in Ret, and finally buy rank 2-13 in Holy. After that I likely will stay with Holy until rank 35.

[EzG]

I will be leveling as holy with guildies. I refuse to go ret because I do not like the look or feel of legion ret, and will maybe offspec prot, but for the time being I will stay holy and level as such. It isn't as bad as the overreacters are making it seem like, but it is slower. If you have people to level with, then go holy and just mass pull everything while dpsing and keeping the other people alive. If you have no guildies or friends, go ahead and make some.

[Deleted]

Leveling as Holy Guide:
1. Spec Retribution

[DanThePaladin]

I've been leveling as Holy and I find it to be alright, surely it's a bit slow and things - notably the rares will take longer to kill, but besides that you are extremely tanky.

[Ursiel]

Holy > Ret for me. More fun. Ret is garbage now and I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole.

[Genzen Han]

How does Holy solo leveling compare to Prot solo leveling? I'm gonna be MS Holy with OS Prot (don't wanna be Ret at all), so I'm wondering if it'd be better for me to level in my Prot Spec and do like what they were saying about just using non-AP-scaling items for the Prot stuff and using the rest on Holy. Or would it be better just to level as Holy rather than Prot?

[btard]

Leveling as Holy Guide:
1. Spec Retribution

what ret talents do you use for leveling?

[Deleted]

Do you actually gain anything leveling as holy? I haven't had beta access so have done nothing about artifacts. Can't you just save all the AP to go into your holy weapon once you aquire it? Surely using the ret weapon will suffice leveling fast especially compared to holy even without getting the higher unlocks