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  1. #1
    Mechagnome Yzyz's Avatar
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    [Holy] Challenge Mode Advice

    Hello everyone,

    I've really wanted to start working on challenge modes lately but I feel like I could be doing better. I don't have any logs but I was more curious on recommended spec, stat priority, ect. I feel like I struggle but I just don't know what more to do. Anything and everything would be appreciated.

    I did try reforging into haste but I am not sure if mastery is still top stat. Anyways, take a look and if any holy pally has had success with CM golds, I would appreciate any advice you would give.

    http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...r/Yzz/advanced

    Thanks everyone!!

    Amazing sig compliments of Alyajna!

  2. #2
    This is just my opinion and experience, I ran all 9 with mastery stacking, I did however swap alot of my higher ilvl and tier gear for lower gear that gave me more spirit. The major change I made was just my healing style, I tended to just run through using mainly divine light and flash heals, and learning when I could drink during less dangerous trash pulls etc, getting your drink off in between pulls is the key imo.

  3. #3
    Blademaster Geekgurl's Avatar
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    Hey Yzyz,

    When I usually run CMs, I will usually gear more towards haste and reforge a bit until I hit a 2-second casting speed. I'll also switch out some of my pieces (mainly gloves and helm) for pieces that I socket with int + spirit/Int+ mastery. Depending on the CM, I will choose between purity/clemency (most of the rest of my talents I won't switch). I did first started using SS, but found EF better. I have seen some CM pallies use prism, but found my hammer better for healing and damaging AOE packs. I will always take my blinding light glyph for the extra stun and flash of light (which most CM Hpally's will say is a must). I always keep my protector glyph in.

    If I don't have to use an invis pot, I am usually carrying mana/int pots on me (use ambers when your out of combat).

    Remember, it's not all on you for healing others need to do their part, too (jump into an AV if you don't have a lock so everyone is carrying healthstones). I am usually up in melee sometimes interrupting/blinding/Arcane torrent just to make sure additional damage isn't going out...You need to be very vocal on vent in regards to sacs/BoPs and and anything in general to keep people informed (I even tell them when I'm DPSing so they know no direct heals are going out for the time)...yell at people if you have to if they are sitting in/doing something stupid. :P

    Good Luck!
    Last edited by Geekgurl; 2013-01-28 at 11:49 AM.

  4. #4
    Mechagnome Yzyz's Avatar
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    Thanks for the advice Geekgurl. I guess my main issue is knowing when to BoP/sac without getting myself killed >.<. Good catch on the blinding light glyph. Didn't even think of that. I did try to use Holy Prism which wasn't bad for an instant heal or aoe heal but feels weak. Maybe I'll switch back to Light's Hammer.

    I guess my main concern is that we have 99% direct heals. I can't just HoT and forget. Some of these are just really discouraging lol. I guess it is just a matter of practice makes perfect right?

    Amazing sig compliments of Alyajna!

  5. #5
    Blademaster Geekgurl's Avatar
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    Yeah, it does take awhile to get use to. You should look at what some of the debuffs types are. For example, I will usually BoP off the debuff on the first boss in palace so the DPS can keep DPSing (can't think of it off the top of my head, but it's when the dog fixates on you)/ use purity mostly through SH for the bleeds - especially when the tank LoS you on the dog outside the mini boss/ BoP range DPS in the monkey room in Brewery since their threat skyrockets when they are running barrels/etc.

    EFs are a 30 second HoT, so you may be able to get everyone with them (most of the time I will take purpose - personal choice) before incoming damage..but I know sometimes they aren't enough. The pack just before the first boss in Siege - I could never keep up with the stacking debuff and the DPS blowing all of them up at once. I know a dpriest with spirit shell is pwn there, but for me blowing every cd I have there wasn't a chance (even with health stones). We had to change it to dpsing the blobs to 30% and blowing them up at staggering times so I could catch up with the damage...we didn't really lose too much time doing this as the tank pulled the boss when there were only 2-3 left. You just have to make your group comp work for you.

  6. #6
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    Geekgurl, when is hand of purity actually useful in CMs? You mention the SH pack with the commander but personally I prefer to have multiple sacs for the rest of the instance.

    For the OP stack as much mastery as possible and spam that FoL button, using DL is very risky on a majority of the pulls. In my opinion the FoL, blinding light and LoH glyphs are the best glyphs, FoL and Blinding Light is pretty obvious why, the LoH glyph is extremely useful as you of course will go oom quickly when spamming FoL.

    Having a shorter cd on your stun will almost always be useful and repentance is useful for certian bosses or bad pulls. Imo holy prism is a must, the cd is short, it does high single target healing (and decent aoe damage) or single target damage and decent aoe healing. The other two talents only really have one function, one does aoe and the other does single target.

  7. #7
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    In addition of the good advice already given, I'd recommend Holy Avenger for these as well. It's a great ability on a rather short cooldown. I loved it during CM's.

    In my group we had quite a lot of AoE stuns already so I opted out of the Blinding Light glyph, does it actually share a DR with anything?

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Ariathe View Post
    In my group we had quite a lot of AoE stuns already so I opted out of the Blinding Light glyph, does it actually share a DR with anything?
    It shares DR with other stuns, so it's pretty useless if you run with a DK, War, Monk or Shaman...
    Glyph of Beacon of Light is much better.

  9. #9
    Mechagnome Yzyz's Avatar
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    Thanks for the great advice everyone! Few things that were mentioned, I totally overlooked. The Blinding Light glyph will be incredibly useful and I guess I should use FoL more then DL. I was trying out Holy Prism over Light's Hammer and I think it is a tad more useful since a majority of these challenge modes are just killer tank damage with moderate group damage. I usually run Divine Purpose but I think I am going to try using Holy Avenger. Ran it in raid yesterday to experiment and I think I am starting to like it.

    I don't run these challenge modes too often so I don't get a lot of practice. Next to raiding and work, It's hard to put in the attempts and let alone find a good group. I think at this point, it is more along the lines of a few tweaks and practice.

    People should feel free to keep posting advice, favorite group make up, talents, glyphs, or even hijack it to ask your own questions!

    Amazing sig compliments of Alyajna!

  10. #10
    As a paladin with 9/9 gold, here is my advice:

    -Get the amber food from Klaxxi - it regens your mana much faster than mage food.
    -Use EF, Holy Avenger, and Holy Prism as your talents. You want the burst heals from HP instead of the sustained of Light's Hammer.
    -90% of the time, it will be the tank taking damage only, with you spam healing him. Glyph FoL, Blinding Light, and LoH for extra emergency mana.
    -Reforge all to haste, use int food and int flask. It's all about throughput. Spirit will not matter, as you can amber after pulls to full mana.
    -Have a dps spec for last boss of Stormstout Brewery. You'll need it if you can't beat the add timer.

  11. #11
    Mechagnome Yzyz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by quellious View Post
    As a paladin with 9/9 gold, here is my advice:

    -Get the amber food from Klaxxi - it regens your mana much faster than mage food.
    -Use EF, Holy Avenger, and Holy Prism as your talents. You want the burst heals from HP instead of the sustained of Light's Hammer.
    -90% of the time, it will be the tank taking damage only, with you spam healing him. Glyph FoL, Blinding Light, and LoH for extra emergency mana.
    -Reforge all to haste, use int food and int flask. It's all about throughput. Spirit will not matter, as you can amber after pulls to full mana.
    -Have a dps spec for last boss of Stormstout Brewery. You'll need it if you can't beat the add timer.
    Good advice. I was actually curious on what food and flasks people were using. I might give haste a second go around if you think it makes that much of a difference. I think I just need to time my Klaxxi a little better and remember it after each pull if possible. Did a few attempts at MSP before raid and missed gold by a few seconds a couple times. Things are getting a bit easier with the practice. Thanks for the advice!

    Amazing sig compliments of Alyajna!

  12. #12
    Keyboard Turner Ixiatchicual's Avatar
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    I just got challenge conqueror gold a few days ago, so I thought I'd chime in if that's alright. A lot of solid advice has already been given, some of which I did as well.

    -My spec was Speed of Light, FoJ (had plenty of long-term cc's in group), SS, Clemency (Hand of Purity for only a few fights, like Gate's 2nd boss), DP (I tried HA and it works fine, I just liked having 1 less cooldown to monitor lol), and LH (Prism is fine too, just a matter of preference). I wasn't a fan of EF in challenge modes, it's HOT effect felt like it did too little when you needed healing on multiple people, so I went with SS since tanks take the brunt of the damage going out.
    -My glyphs were Blinding Light (I found it very helpful, make sure you coordinate your aoe stuns though so it doesn't get wasted), Flash of Light, and Divine Protection (I used potions/ambers often so I didn't need LoH's mana, plus helped soak damage through Hand of Sac).
    -I didn't reforge specifically for CM's, just left my gear as it was, prioritized for mastery/spirit; still got gold lol. That said, reforging to the other stats as suggested earlier may work better.
    -Make use of all your hand spells (protection, salvation, sacrifice, freedom), especially if you're using Clemency. Prot and Salv can save a dps who pulled aggro, that's 4 potential life-savers right there. Use sacrifice when you expect a lot of tank damage, especially when they're stunned (tank deaths can happen in a second in result of a stun). Freedom doesn't have a whole lot of uses in CM that I noticed, but there are times when someone gets hit by a slow effect when they're kiting, or trying to drag near-dead mobs into a new set of mobs.
    -As stated earlier, you must get a 463 ilvl ret set, preferably reforged so that you won't miss on lvl 93 bosses. I used my ret set on 2 bosses; Yan Zhu, and Lilian Voss.
    -Check out Marza of Aftermath's Challenge Mode Gold videos on youtube, if you haven't already. It gives you a good idea on what your group will need to coordinate their efforts on.

    And last but not least, don't give up. On my early runs, I remember thinking getting all golds would be impossible with my group comp. But we kept trying, wiping, resetting, wiping, wait for reset cooldown, and try again, eventually succeeding. It gets easier the more attempts you put in, at least it felt that way to me.

  13. #13
    So if you have ret gear that's 463 or higher ilvl then you should be fine for Brewery and Voss right?

    http://www.twitch.tv/hammerpairs 7/7 Mythic EN / 3/3 Mythic ToV / 10/10 Mythic NH / 9/9 Mythic ToS
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBmNLMo4vcI some old school CM fun
    "Your lights will go out. The darkness will envelop you. And you will fear the shadows that move within it."

  14. #14
    Keyboard Turner Ixiatchicual's Avatar
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    Yup anything at least 463 ilvl will do. Gear higher than that will be normalized as if it were a 463 ilvl item, and anything lower is wasting precious stat points.

  15. #15
    I wanted to thank you all for the advice in this post. I put a lot of what was said to task yesterday and we're clearing challenges quite quickly.

  16. #16
    Mechagnome Yzyz's Avatar
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    Although I don't have much time for lots of attempts, since the advice I have gotten, we are getting pretty close to these golds. Cant wait till I have time to focus on some of them!

    Keep it up!

    Amazing sig compliments of Alyajna!

  17. #17
    Wanted to go ahead and post saying thanks to the people that gave advice for paladins about challenge modes, tonight was our first night going at them and we were able to achieve 2 Gold challenge medals and get some good practice runs on a third one, before people had to log for the night (Scarlet Halls). We plan to achieve gold in that instance tomorrow as well.

    Every bit of advice here helped me a HUGE amount in preparing and performing to get those Gold times.
    Last edited by Theholypally; 2013-02-09 at 09:04 AM.

    http://www.twitch.tv/hammerpairs 7/7 Mythic EN / 3/3 Mythic ToV / 10/10 Mythic NH / 9/9 Mythic ToS
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBmNLMo4vcI some old school CM fun
    "Your lights will go out. The darkness will envelop you. And you will fear the shadows that move within it."

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Tagzz View Post
    1. The tank dies from damage (ie you were spam healing them with plenty of mana and they still died)
    2. Tank (usually) or someone dies from unavoidable damage because you were oom.
    3. Dps (usually, possibly sometimes the tank) dies to avoidable damage.

    First one is often the tank's fault or the group's fault for not coordinating CC, or tank not properly using AM and cooldowns. If the tank is playing well, you should never have #1 happen if you're spamming well.

    Second one is related to the first. Believe it or not poor CD usage often results in the second happening. Holy Avenger is great for low-mana situations, if there are low-damage phases you can divine plea if you are low mana, etc. Using DF (instead of wasting its cooldown) lets you use Divine Light instead of Flash of Light for more efficient healing. Holy Light also if you are healing a DPS. Same with GoAK, you can use Flash of Light with heavy damage early, then switch to Divine Light as your haste buff stacks.

    Third one can actually be helped by you as well sometimes (aside from communicating more) - Salvation and BOP are great for aggro, but yes, can't win them all. Oh yes, also, try not to die to avoidable damage yourself, that's a bit of a bummer if it happens.


    I guess I'll add one more tip - don't forget you are an interrupt class.

  19. #19
    We did some practice runs on stormstout brewery tonight, and even though we made a mistake of aggroing the little adds before the last boss room and a wipe on last boss when i was ret we still finished with a silver rating.

    One question from me though is for the last boss, as ret, would i be better off taking holy prism and eternal flame or holy prism and selfless healer? We run with a warrior tank and apart from his second wind and health stones (and group off healing from the shaman such as ancentral guidance, healing totem etc) i was thinking of going holy prism + EF for the extra heal over time when im dpsing on the final push since he doesnt have any other self healing that i know of.

    Problem is i waste a 3 point HP setup for a WOG instead of a templars verdict, so that makes selfless healer look a lot better.
    Last edited by Theholypally; 2013-02-12 at 10:20 AM.

    http://www.twitch.tv/hammerpairs 7/7 Mythic EN / 3/3 Mythic ToV / 10/10 Mythic NH / 9/9 Mythic ToS
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBmNLMo4vcI some old school CM fun
    "Your lights will go out. The darkness will envelop you. And you will fear the shadows that move within it."

  20. #20
    I would just go with execution sentence (use it asap) and maybe selfless healer if your tank really needs the off-heals.

    Just use Devotion Aura if you are standing in the suds, and honestly besides that there's really not much to heal, which is why you went ret in the first place. AG + HST should be good enough.

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