Proly Healing.. A new way to look at paladin healing.

[Wintry]

First let me emphasize that there have been other instances in which an "off" tree has successfully fullfilled an unexpected role in WoW's history. One example is in the days of AQ40, the rage with all the healing druids was being feral for using the larger mana pool available down the talent tree. Though in those days I do not believe that the spec was intentional, I do believe that there is some underused non-cookiecutter specs out there that blizzard had possibily intended.

Please understand that this spec that I'd like to share has been throughly tested and proven effective in my eyes though it might be a little difficult for people to immediately warm up to.

The following is a repost of what I originally posted on the official wow forums in november.

The following is the proly build. A build I have created in response to what I believe blizzard wants us to do. Be more creative with build designs and not go by what we believe "should" be what a build includes. Please note that as I have written earlier, this build has its disadvantages and advantages. I strongly recommend that you try it out yourself to see them in fruition

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000

to be advanced with wotlk as

1 point in aura mastery, 2 points in imp lay on hands, 1 point in divine favor, 3 points in sanctified light, 3 points in Holy power.

This build is meant to be a raid build to work in conjunction with a pure holy paladin and mostly as a MT healing build.

The advantages of this build are as follows:
1) Higher crits, from 10.5k to 12k with 1100-1200 sp with holy light. WithOUT avenging wrath, 13k-15k with it.
2) More raid survivability with Sacred Duty.
3) Better personal survivability if you somehow get an add.
4) +sta buffs are more plentiful and higher than +int and therefore greater +sp is gained from raid buffs.
5) access to blessing of sanctuary, kings, and imp devo aura which are often not desireable to a raid pally tank.

The disadvantages are as follows:
1) Less mana efficiency, especially before 80.
2) Lower crit percentage
3) No holy shock, though there are trinkets that have instant heals that you can use to simulate. Older pally healers are used to not using holy shock as a heal anyway.

Please discuss and thank you for you comments. If this build has been posted here before, I apologize. But this build has come from my own creativity within the game without reading any outside influences.

....

Since then, I have come a long way. I can hit 3k spellpower in 3 drakes. I've done 31k holy lights and 12k fol's. The main objective of this build is to pick up possibly unavailable prot talents and utilities and to increase the effectiveness of FoL. I do have a lot more to say about this build, but first I'd like to see some discussion.

-Wintry

[septuagon]

Why did you do this over the standard deep holy/ret tree crit build?
What about Maly, you need HS in there....
Your numbers are impressive, but how often do you crit?
Holy was once my main spec but is now my off spec. So I am skeptical of this build.

[Wintry]

I'm just exploring new boundaries; holy/ret is a solid build. Not having HS is definately one of the biggest disadvantages in the build, using this spec is more of a play style thing. Maly has never been a problem as long as you have a good AoE healer. Really this spec is made for one reason alone, healing a MT. It works really well on widow, we just let her enrage each time and dps her down. My current crit is between 24 and 30 percent depending on the raid composition.

[hawk00]

trading all the good holy talents for a little survivability doesnt seem like that great of an idea, i barely ever get any adds on me at any time, and holy shock is almost absolutely necessary in some situations, beacon is a must have for certain encounters. i can see what youre trying to do with the spec, but honestly i think playing this way would only give you fol spam, holy lights full cast time would put a damper on things if you had to use it.

[modrn]

Im actually interested to see some proof of numbers or a video or something.. what gear are you in ? I feel if you went into a raid in partial PvP gear for Stam increase and used all PvE nonset or vice versa your heals could be bigger..

I guess my main question is what is ur mana pool unbuffed, SP and crit all unbuffed. Seems like a legit healing Spec for MT or OT healing but kinda would lack in raid healing.

[Cymocethia]

The build is good for single target healing... Although, I think the Sheath of Light build is much better to heal a single target MT. 32k Crit Holy Light is eye candy, but when 20k goes into overhealing, it's not worth it. I'd rather apply a heal over time (Sheath of Light) when I crit than just add more Over Healing. It's more effective.

As far as Holy goes: Beacon of Light and Holy Shock are your best friends. My raids would whipe on some encounters if I didn't have those 2 spells...

Don't give up your best healing tools for eye candy

[Wintry]

Let me also say i'm from an old school frame of healing where you time heals a lot more than just reactive spam, holy light is rarely used (except in known exceptions where i know that the tank wont be taking more than 13-28k damage in 2.2s.) This spec is definately not for everyone, but I still like people to know about it. If you'd like to check out my unbuffed info, look me up on armory. Wintry@Destromath

This build was made when I just figured to make a MT only healing paladin and let the priests, shamans, and druids worry about aoe healing.

And yes, you stack stam. I can almost have 30k hp in a raid, and yeah you can OT briefly if needed.

a 32k crit is only with wings up, and if your tank has 50k+ hp *druid* then it really isn't that bad (once again holy light is a rare occurance.) Especially if you're solo healing him in a 25 man. Beacon bothers me to no end since it doesn't heal on an overheal and holy shock I do miss, but FoL works just fine for anything except maly.

[Bramickias]

I dont see any reasons to use that kind of build.
Pallys are already the healers with the most survivability in pve, beside the point to get BoK theres nothing to gain in there for raid healing. FoL is use pretty much casted only when your tank is already full of when there no real damage incoming, HL is where it is right now. When you see that your HS has a 50% crit ratio you cant go back to not having it, and i cant even imagine raiding without Bacon.

That kind of build is ok if the rest of your healers are carrying you. Anyway, "hybrid" build will be totally useless once dual-spec arrives.

[Cymocethia]

Beacon bothers me to no end since it doesn't heal on an overheal...

That's a given... you are right! That is why you need to learn on who to use it and who to heal

It's an art!

You are making good points, I'll give it a shot when dual specs comes out -- I was actually thinking about having two healer specs: Full Holy and Sheath healer builds -- but I might try out the Proly build

[Wintry]

Pallys are already the healers with the most survivability in pve, beside the point to get BoK theres nothing to gain in there for raid healing.

Blessing of Sanctuary is really nice if you dont have a prot pally in your raid.

Divine Guardian is also a great talent to use when there's a lot of aoe damage.

Really it's a trade off. FoL critting for 9.2k and normal for 4.6k is what makes it close to the effectiveness of HL usage.

When they remove kings... maybe they'll add another ability that's for pve healing... maybe

Beacon is totally a jive sort of thing. I'm just not jiving with it yet. (though i've tried multiple times.)

Survivability is totally relative to the encounter, unfortunately naxx is too easy.

When dual specs come out, i'll be proly and holy; i can't wait.

-Wintry

thanks for the input btw; i'm not pretending to replace holy specs, just considering different possibilities for when dual specs come out

[Retrogames]

A very interesting concept, perhaps Blizzard will add more sharable protective / mitigation abilities to Prot, allowing healing paladins to spec "Proly", taking advantage of advanced mitigation rather than advanced healing, similar to Disc priests.

[Lumidar]

this build is used by some paladins in Arenas as they wear holy gear but mainly spec'd prot to take less damage.

i find it stupid since blizzard wants to buff prot but they're hesitating to because holy is doing this shit...

[Dæs]

I have used a build like this for awhile, but not for raid healing or pve as most fights have too much moving to keep you feet planted.

I use a build like this when farming honor, it sucks in arena, trust me don't try it.

But is really shines in PvP BG's. You can still heal well, in fact, very well. The amount of stam on S5 gear means that i have more sp then a normal holy build in the same gear, alot more. Add to that, all the % dmg less abilities and your a tank that can heal.

Trust me, 1k resil and this build, takes 4-5 allies to kill me, multiple arcane mages still own me, but who don't they insta gib? Gives me, depending on what class's and gear lvl are on you, an extra 20-45secs, and in some case's, i can never be killed, cough ret pallies cough.

[gattaca]

You also miss out on the 15% haste from judgements of pure and the instant FoL procs / shortened cast time Holy lights. Too many fights these days require you to be mobile, and you're going to suffer heavily from that.

[apokteino]

this is a terrible spec. you said the the advantages are:

1) Higher crits, from 10.5k to 12k with 1100-1200 sp with holy light. WithOUT avenging wrath, 13k-15k with it.
* if you finish the spec off you still have 10% less crit chance than the regular cookie cutter spec. 30% higher crits but 10% less likely to crit... kinda weak considering this appears to be the big reason to spec like this. also like someone else pointed out most crit heals end up overhealing some if you have the tank capped (like you're supposed to).

2) More raid survivability with Sacred Duty.
* this would be nice for a few specific fights (like saph) but isn't necessary at all (3 drake sarth being the only possible exception). also if you have a pally off tank he can probably afford 2 points rather than you going points deep into the prot tree to get it.

3) Better personal survivability if you somehow get an add.
* if you die as a pally you need to l2stun, l2bubble. or l2bitch@urtanks. this is not a valid reason.

4) +sta buffs are more plentiful and higher than +int and therefore greater +sp is gained from raid buffs.
* haven't run numbers but i think that seems reasonable. you said 3k spellpower and while i find that somewhat hard to believe i can go with that. so you're heals end up being bigger.

5) access to blessing of sanctuary, kings, and imp devo aura which are often not desireable to a raid pally tank.
* BoK- points at ret pally; imp devo- points at tree; sanc- points at prot pally

overall i think this spec looses much much much more than you gain with reasons 1 and 4 being the only ones that are semi-legit. Beacon, 10% crit, lights grace, and holy shock are just a few of the essential spells you need as a healer. all in all i think this a fail spec. i can't imagine a serious raid guild letting you come specced like this.

[Quelana]

1) Higher crits, from 10.5k to 12k with 1100-1200 sp with holy light. WithOUT avenging wrath, 13k-15k with it.
Am I reading this right? 10.5-12k holy light crits? I'd cry if my crits were that low. Plus the reduced crit chances and less haste from JoTP, plus Infusion of light procing .8 second holy lights, sounds like you're just losing out on HPS.

2) More raid survivability with Sacred Duty.
Why would you need extra stam and reduced bubble cds? If you're paying attention and doing the job right this should be a non-issue

3) Better personal survivability if you somehow get an add.
Same as above response, I always have avenging wrath up if there's a boss fight with adds that need control. Why? Cause I'd much rather I tank it than a more squishy healer. If your OTs are on the ball they can pick them up, if not, you have beacon and can heal yourself through the dmg.

4) +sta buffs are more plentiful and higher than +int and therefore greater +sp is gained from raid buffs.
SP through raid buffs? Pallys don't need more spellpower, we already overheal a ton thanks to JoL, Beacon, and huge holy light crits.

5) access to blessing of sanctuary, kings, and imp devo aura which are often not desireable to a raid pally tank.
raid pally tanks should ALWAYS pick up sanctuary and Imp Devo aura, most i know pick up kings as well cause there are points to spare. I could see a viable argument here if you have no prot pally in the raid.

Overall it seems like you're adding unnecessary survivability to gimp your HPS and go oom.