Possible? Holy for dps on dungeons/raids

[Necrosaro123]

I'm tired of Retribution and i want to try something different for my paladin. I have never used Holy and i want to learn how to use it, but not for healing.... I want to be a DPS with it and see if it's possible to do a good dps with it.

Anyone else have tried this? How did you made it possible?


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Holy for DPS on quests and killing world mobs is really fun and useful, still trying to test it on dungeons

My character: KITHELROS Human Holy Paladin Quel'Thalas (USA)
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...thelros/simple

[Avada Kedavra]

Yes, you can prob pull a max about 22k burst dps, about 16k sustained. Not worth switching for DPS, no one will take you.

[Kurzior]

I've actually been able to put out around 30k-35k sustained at ~488 item level with tier 14 4-set in heroic dungeons. Holy does have decent off-dps damage but it really doesn't work as a true dps spec. You're limitted pretty severely by the slow cast time of denounce and the lack of constant holy power generation. CS helps fill this gap, but then you end up burning gcd's on a very poor dps ability. Combine all of that with the fact that only Seal of Insight allows you to sustain your mana in a dps situation, so you won't be able to keep Seal of Truth active for the extra damage.
Bottom line, its nice to be able to throw in some dps help in things like challenge modes or if your raid needs help killing an add quickly (emperor's courage on WoE for example), but you don't have anywhere near the capability to pull respectable sustained dps in a raid setting.

If you want to play around 5-mans, here's the setup I use.

Talents:
tier 1 - your choice
tier 2 - your choice
tier 3 - Selfless Healer
tier 4 - your choice
tier 5 - Divine Purpose (sustain damage) or Holy Avenger (burst damage)
tier 6 - Holy Prism

Glyphs
Harsh Words (required)
Denounce (recommended)
Double Jeopardy (if 2 targets are available)
Divinity (useful to boost your mana endurance slightly)

Note: although the Word of Glory glyph looks appealing, its actually a long term dps loss to waste a WoG to heal to get the buff which is only active for 6 seconds.


Rotation:
Holy Prism (if 3+ targets, cast on ally)
Word of Glory (with 5HP)
Denounce (with glyph proc)
Holy Shock
Word of Glory (3+ HP or Divine Purpose)
Holy Prism (1-2 targets, cast on enemy)
Judgement (rotate targets if glyphed)
Flash of Light (3 charges of selfless healer, cast on Beacon)


DISCLAIMER: This is ONLY to show how to build a holy paladin for dps. Not intended to suggest that it is a viable raiding dps spec.

[Necrosaro123]

I've actually been able to put out around 30k-35k sustained at ~488 item level with tier 14 4-set in heroic dungeons. Holy does have decent off-dps damage but it really doesn't work as a true dps spec. You're limitted pretty severely by the slow cast time of denounce and the lack of constant holy power generation. CS helps fill this gap, but then you end up burning gcd's on a very poor dps ability. Combine all of that with the fact that only Seal of Insight allows you to sustain your mana in a dps situation, so you won't be able to keep Seal of Truth active for the extra damage.
Bottom line, its nice to be able to throw in some dps help in things like challenge modes or if your raid needs help killing an add quickly (emperor's courage on WoE for example), but you don't have anywhere near the capability to pull respectable sustained dps in a raid setting.

If you want to play around 5-mans, here's the setup I use.

Talents:
tier 1 - your choice
tier 2 - your choice
tier 3 - Selfless Healer
tier 4 - your choice
tier 5 - Divine Purpose (sustain damage) or Holy Avenger (burst damage)
tier 6 - Holy Prism

Glyphs
Harsh Words (required)
Denounce (recommended)
Double Jeopardy (if 2 targets are available)
Divinity (useful to boost your mana endurance slightly)

Note: although the Word of Glory glyph looks appealing, its actually a long term dps loss to waste a WoG to heal to get the buff which is only active for 6 seconds.


Rotation:
Holy Prism (if 3+ targets, cast on ally)
Word of Glory (with 5HP)
Denounce (with glyph proc)
Holy Shock
Word of Glory (3+ HP or Divine Purpose)
Holy Prism (1-2 targets, cast on enemy)
Judgement (rotate targets if glyphed)
Flash of Light (3 charges of selfless healer, cast on Beacon)


DISCLAIMER: This is ONLY to show how to build a holy paladin for dps. Not intended to suggest that it is a viable raiding dps spec.

Thank you, this is really useful, i will give it a try because i want something new to do with my paladin. i will post more with the results i got.

Yesterday i left my paladin with only the wrist, boots and rings to collect, all the other pieces are 463 from heroics. Just one more question, for reforge what is better? Critical, haste or Mastery?

Thanks

[voidspark]

If you spec/glyph for DPS (no mastery, for instance) you can do alright on a single target, but you don't have much (or really any) AoE and aren't going to pull the same as a DPS spec would.

[Pacer]

No just no, holy paladin dps is god awful and will always be awful. A dps class in ilvl 450 will out dps a holy paladin in ilvl 500. To the guy with the super "complicated" rotation I can do 30-35k dps by just spamming denounce, judgement is a dps loss.

Why does holy dps suck? Because it doesnt scale with mastery and barely scales with haste, during heroism a non proc denounce will be under 1 sec cast which means you have "too much" haste. Even divine favor which gives 10% less haste is almost going to get you under 1 sec cast time (I have 2100 haste and get a 1.080 sec cast time unbuffed).

[Kurzior]

Just one more question, for reforge what is better? Critical, haste or Mastery?

Mastery doesn't help you so any piece that has mastery, you want to forge it off.

I honestly can't remember if we get spell hit cap for free or not, at work right now so I can't check at the moment. If you don't have spell hit capped, that's where you want to start.

So your priority is going to be something like:
Intellect = Hit (to spell cap)? > Crit > Haste > Spirit

Intellect is the only stat that noticeably boosts damage through spellpower. Even so, the SP coefficients on the damage portions of our spells are still pretty weak.
Hit(?) because I honestly can't remember if we get spell hit cap by default or not. It's never been something I bothered looking at as holy. In the case that we do get it default, disregard this.
Crit is the biggest dps increase for us because of our damage spells, all but 1 are instant, and Denounce should almost always be cast under the effect of the glyph proc, greatly reducing the value of haste.


Again though, I feel compelled to say again that this is not a realistic way to try to get into raids. It works in 5-mans because most fights do not give healers near enough to do, especially as your gear increases. It gives us some utility in challenge modes where dps is often a concern and its great for soloing old content. This is not a viable raiding build and you should not be expected to be taken to a raid as a holy dps or even as a part-time healer.

---------- Post added 2013-01-16 at 02:33 PM ----------

No just no, holy paladin dps is god awful and will always be awful. A dps class in ilvl 450 will out dps a holy paladin in ilvl 500. To the guy with the super "complicated" rotation I can do 30-35k dps by just spamming denounce, judgement is a dps loss.

For one thing, I never said it was complicated, I just wrote it out that way for the sake of completeness. Also, if that rotation really looks complicated to you, god help you if you ever try to play a dps class.

Judgment is only a dps loss in purely single target rotations. If glyphed and there are at least 2 targets, it is a dps gain over casting Denounce without a proc active. It also allows stacking of selfless healer to give an instant FoL for holy power generation when Denounce glyph is not proc'd.

[voidspark]

I honestly can't remember if we get spell hit cap for free or not, at work right now so I can't check at the moment. If you don't have spell hit capped, that's where you want to start.

You do get hit cap for free.

[Pacer]

For one thing, I never said it was complicated, I just wrote it out that way for the sake of completeness. Also, if that rotation really looks complicated to you, god help you if you ever try to play a dps class.

Judgment is only a dps loss in purely single target rotations. If glyphed and there are at least 2 targets, it is a dps gain over casting Denounce without a proc active. It also allows stacking of selfless healer to give an instant FoL for holy power generation when Denounce glyph is not proc'd.

It is extremely complicated for 30k dps. Once again holy paladin dps is the most stupid idea ever, it scales horribly with haste, it doesnt scale at all with mastery and even crit it scales poorly with due to the high crit chance that HS has.

If you want a healer class to pretend to dps the worst one you can pick is a paladin.

[voidspark]

It is extremely complicated for 30k dps. Once again holy paladin dps is the most stupid idea ever, it scales horribly with haste, it doesnt scale at all with mastery and even crit it scales poorly with due to the high crit chance that HS has.

If you want a healer class to pretend to dps the worst one you can pick is a paladin.

I think it's primarily designed around pvp burst/usage.

[Freia]

If you only want to dps, you are probably better off rerolling to a class with more dps options rather than trying to make a spec meant for a different role dps.

[Pasture]

Yes, you can prob pull a max about 22k burst dps, about 16k sustained. Not worth switching for DPS, no one will take you.

Well, this would be at crappy gear levels.

A geared Holy Paladin with the right glyphs and talents can burst 90k easily. I go in lfd as a healer (not even with shockadin setup) and out dps most of the actual dps. All depends on your gear.

[Necrosaro123]

It is extremely complicated for 30k dps. Once again holy paladin dps is the most stupid idea ever, it scales horribly with haste, it doesnt scale at all with mastery and even crit it scales poorly with due to the high crit chance that HS has.

If you want a healer class to pretend to dps the worst one you can pick is a paladin.

I understand your point on this one, but it's only an experiment. Due to the fact that i only have a paladin right now and retribution is boring to play, it can be useful to play in dungeons or outdoors