What is paladin healing like?

[Shannerd]

One word:

Boring

[Deleted]

To OP :

Basically, holy paladins are the best single ( or dual target ) healers in the game by a large mile. Along with the plethora of utility and cooldowns, we make for excellent tank healers. So good in fact, that we are almost a requirement for hard modes.

Think of us like engineers of TF2; a tool for every occasion, limited mobility when focusing at one task that needs the most attention, and heavily relies on other's performance to do well.



Things you should use either actively or situationally as required ( buffs not included in the list ) :

- Heals =

* Holy Light ( and Glyph of HL )
* Flash of Light ( and FoL HoT )
* Holy Shock

- Judgements =

* Wisdom is a dps increase for dps, because they will have less need on having to use their mana management mechanics.
* Light adds up as a moderate heal proc, which can be a tremendous help when counting everything else in addition. Especially nice for melee.
* Justice stops the mob from running away, and limits them to their normal running speed ( 100% ). Not nearly as useful in PvE as it is in PvP.
* Judging will give you a buff called Judgements of the Pure, which increases your haste by 15% for 1 min.

- Misc. =

* Beacon of Light : Literally clones your heal. Also lets you heal the target from a 60 yard distance.
* Sacred Shield : Gives a shield that procs every 6s when taking damage. Also gives 50% crit during the proc for FoL, and a HoT that ticks every second.
* Cleanse
* Hammer of Justice
* Holy Wrath
* Turn Evil
* 2 taunts and righteous fury if needed ( also, imp. RF will give 6% less damage taken )
* Seal of Wisdom / Light (+ glyph to either one ). With Wisdom, you will get a tremendous amount of mana back through auto-attack, judgement and shield of righteousness.

- Cooldowns :

* Divine Plea
* Divine Illumination
* Divine Favor
* Divine Shield
* Divine Protection
* Divine Sacrifice ( and Divine Guardian )
* Aura Mastery
* Hand of Salvation
* Hand of Protection
* Hand of Sacrifice
* Hand of Freedom
* Lay on Hands
* Avenging Wrath


Other than that, the most time is still spent on spamming due to holy paladin's and wotlk's mechanics - that along with cooldown and mana management.

Ideally, there should never be a time that you're not using every single global, even when moving.

[Dhania]

Paladin healing is much better than it was in BC. I think this is one area where blizzard shined for once with paladins.

You get instant flashes alot, plus a 6 second CD on holy shock so you can be throwing out lots of heals very quickly. This is made even better by the fact many talents shorten cast time and a free 15% haste when you judge. If you judge light on CD, you even have a short of aoe hot for the entire raid attacking the boss.

Essentially if you like seat of your pants type reaction healing by chaining instants and large quick heals, paladins are your best bet. The ones who just spam one button aren't making best use of all the paladin tools available. It is fun and keeps you on your toes and interested to me.

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but instant cast spells don't actually let you "throw out lots of heals" any quicker. You're still bound by the GCD. They're great for movement, if a little less than strictly reliable, but on any fight where you're standing around, their use will be a throughput loss.

Imagine if arcane mages could heal. That's what it's like.

I like you.

[zito]

HOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYL LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT



am I doing it right?

[Ronark]

If Damage Taken = High Then ( /cast Holy Light );
If Mana = Low Then ( /cast Divine Plea )
Else /cast Judgement of Light
Else ( /Cast Flash of Light )

[XepNes]

One word:

Boring

^This.

[Lufee]

Imo, it's alot of DI's, bubble hearths, and judgment pulling.

and of course, Holy Light Spam (or at that level, I guess flash spamming is cool)

[Balrog The Boxer]

I enjoy it a lot because the amount of tools you have that don't necessarily heal but help out. I also like the mana management.
Bottom line is it appears simple but you can do a lot with it if you want.

[Nibbler]

Thank you, elnarr. There are a lot of things a holy pally can do to help the raid. For those that think holy light spam is all there is, you are very mis-informed. Yes, a holy pally can be dumb and simply spam holy light till oom. However, in respect to playing one to its potenital, spamming holy light will make you fail harder than the non-holy pallies who think spamming holy light is all there is to a holy pally.

The list that elnarr gave was a great summary of the abilities a holy pally has. There are many abilities that help the raid, like threat reduction with hand of salv, tank damage reduction with hand of sacrafice and scared shield, raid damage reduction with divine sacrafice. Yes there are few healing spells (only three), but the other abilities often go overlooked.

Also, if you think holy shock will not help you get more healing done, try not using it on a fight that requires you to move. I bet you any amount of money that you will not be able to cast holy light while running... Wow, who would of thought an instant cast would be used for when you need to run?

[Nielah]

Try it.
You can add your own playstyle, but playing holy in pve gets kinda one dimensional. :\

[Ascal]

If Damage Taken = High Then ( /cast Holy Light );
If Mana = Low Then ( /cast Divine Plea )
Else /cast Judgement of Light
Else ( /Cast Flash of Light )

BEHOLD MY PAINT SKILLS!!1 AND TREMBLE IN FEAR RONARK AS YOUR PATHETIC PROGRAMMING CODE ANALOGY BETRAYS YOU!!1



Sad thing is that that controller would probably work.

[kenn9530]

every class has a spell they over-use since its the goto spell, so what your saying is all the healing classes just spam since each class has that one spell that does the job, most healers stick to around 3 main spells that they use in most fights so if you play the class right it wont get boring but if your bored then your doin it wrong, i mean what is boring about healing the tanks on LK 25 HC when in 2 hits a tank can be dead so every one of you heals is really important otherwise the raid will wipe.

if you think its boring then your doin it wrong or you just dont like healing, droods are the most boring class all you need to do is spam rejuv and wild regrowth on cd and your at the to pof the meters at least a holy pally has to work for it and time the heals for maximum output.

[Forcelink]

if you think a holy pally is easy and just a spam 1 button class your sadly mistaken, they may have 3 main spells for healing but hav a crap load of utility for raid survival and they are the best tank healers. if you are a good holy pally you will make use of these 3 spells to the max where flash of light and holy sock dont get used as much as HL they do get some moderate use in all fights, also sacred shield is an awsome tool for tank mitigation as on lk i have had this shield absorb 8.5k dmg per absorb and the spell lasts 1 min and figths like on singradosa it can had up to 500k healing through absorbs.

to be a good pally you need to know your class and when its best to use your spells like divine sacrifice to the best of their abilities, a bad pally can get through by just spamming but not on hc modes, personnally its my favourite healing class as its my main and i have all the other healers apart from shammy at 80, drood is more of a spam class than pally spam rejuv much and disc mainly spam shields, holy preist mainly spam renew and shammy mainly spam CH so each class has its heal that gets the most use so if you like healing as a pally then go ahead but its not everyone cup of tea.

We said its boring, not easy.

OT:All is well and sleepy till ----> [quote]10% holylightholylightWHATHEFUCKAREYOUFUCKINGDOIGNJESU SFUCKINGCHRISTMOVEMOVEMVEOMOEVMOEVMEVOEMEOV GET OUT OF DEFILE YOU IDIOT STOP KEYBOAD TURNING JESUS CHRIST [quote]

[Nak]

I've tried every healing class except priest (never bothered leveling one up) and personally prefer Shaman. On my pally, it was really boring. Flash of Light, so on and so on.

[Eletharin]

eh em... I've leveled a priest, shaman and paladin through dungeons in only heal specs, I'd say shaman was the easiest, pretty much riptide and lesser healing wave, then priest, pretty much flash spam and use penance / shield when off cd and throw a prayer of mending in there if needed.

As for paladin it's pretty easy till wotlk dungeons, just holy light the tank occasionally was all I had to do, when you hit wotlk you'll have to start flash of light spam to make sure u dont lose mana + when u get divine plea and ur out of mana mid-fight, thats when u start having trouble.

Personally shaman + priest I gave up on in lvl 60s after over 40 levels of heal leveling, I could put earth shield on a draenie warr tank and go afk then come back and he'd be fine, priest pretty much the same, shield, get a crit off for that extra shield, stand back and laugh.

(I'm talking on the basis of giving up at lvl 64 on priest and 69 shaman kos they were so boring, I got pally to 80 with some fun)

You realize healing leveling dungeons at level 64 and 69 is nothing like raid healing at 80 right?


OP: Paladins are pretty much one button wonders. You do need to watch your beacon target, be on the ball with dispels, and ready to hit your "oh shit" buttons, but most of the time you'll just be hitting holy light every time it lights up (or probably mashing it really really fast right before it even lights up). Due to current encounter design Paladins are an important part of any raid due to their exceptional single (or equally impressive double) target throughput.

[Grimbold]

its boring.

[Irony]

And we said that if you only did Holy Light, you are doing it wrong.
Also, Nak apparently heals with Flash of Light only.. I cannot begin to tell him how wrong THAT is.

FoL build bro. Stack sp and gg.

[Madness20]

Paladin healing can be sometimes really funny, and sometimes really boring. Boring part is mostly PvE hc's where you have a lot of raid healers and your limited to tank healing. I find 10 mans hc's with low healer amounts to be very funny on the other side. You might not be a good AoE healer, but if you use your hands and other tools right your raid is very likely to survive and it fills me with pride when i can keep entire raids or bgs alive solo healing.

In PvP is where i find paladin definitly not boring. At any ladders we can be sucessful healers, but you have to have some patient because it can be both really exciting or really annoying, mostly depending of your comps and opponents matchups. If it goes to your side (like fighting full melee dpsers teams - easy for holy paladin ) it's easy, if their casters or priests, it can be very much frustrating, but not something that nice gameplay and exact strategies can't handle at all. Except for few situations... ( lock+disc priest/ priest+rogue = cry).

People may say paladins are easy, well, it might be true on PvE, but in PvP the class has somewhat high skillcap depending on experience and knowledgement about not just your own class, but every other people class and spec, and how you can match up with them. It's a very much "pre-emptive" class where skill is required, besides much trolling around them. You will never be active in PvP, you'll be always coordinating yourself with the situations, and trying to adapt and realize how you can handle the stuff.

The downside i find in Paladin's healing in PvP is it's vulnerability to several situations, like debuffers, interrupts, silences, and any kind of CC, which you have to learn what to "eat" and what and when you can prevent/break some CC's with the few tools we have on long CDs. Most times you'll really need to fake cast to avoid some interrupts, eat one cyclone or a fear on purpose in order to take profit from diminishing returns if the situation goes bad; you'll have to keep away from LoS of most casters and plan your game every second to adapt to the situations in the best way.

[Tycho]

Yeah, I could also stack strengt and expertise on my hunter and go melee the shit out of the boss..
Stacking SP and heal only with FoL is soo wrong, I do not know where to begin explaining.
Just search for one of the thousand threads here that go into it.

Except that's a terrible analogy. Strength is virtually worthless outside of uh, Mongoose Strike or whatever it is.

A SP-stacked FoL build is actually usable and functional, just viewed as not as optimal as a HL build for raiding.

[Ghrog74]

Basically, you get out of Holydins what you put into them. You can Holy Light spam and be a decent healer and get through most content (jut like resto Shammies can Riptide and LHW their way through most stuff) but if you really put your other tools to use a holydin can become something amazing singlehealing things that were never meant to be singlehealed and putting up numbers and utility that other healers envy)