Holy Paly 4.0 Tutorial?

[mcbubble]

I'll be honest. I haven't had the time to read up on the 4.0 changes or play in the PTR.
Is there a quick tutorial that someone has done to encompass most of the 4.0 changes? (I hope so!)

[PlatedPriest]

I'll be honest. I haven't had the time to read up on the 4.0 changes or play in the PTR.
Is there a quick tutorial that someone has done to encompass most of the 4.0 changes? (I hope so!)

i also would like to see the new "pve hpally spec" cause i really have no clue

[dumkin]

I Think the purpose of the new talents is to make no talents bad, so you have more options to create a full worthy spec for Your own playstyle. Ofc there are some pure pvp talents that you will avoid, but you catch my drift

[Fiercon]

Wether it is the spec for all holy pallys out there is debatable. Nonetheless - going with http://wowtal.com/#k=kmIpOCses.a2y.paladin will net you the most HPS in Raids. While leveling you may consider the selfhealing and damage talents more valuable. A pure raidhealing-spec will most certainly look something like this.

As to the tutorial I'd like to see one too, even for the more up-to-date ones having a compact resource on how the pally feels and can be played would make a nice read.

[fakeh]

My current beta spec: cata.wowhead.com/talent#scIozrduufdbZcb
I don't like Eternal Glory, it meant I had to pause every time I used WoG and couldn't easily plan ahead without potentially wasting HoPo anyway but it's there if you don't mind it. Whether or not Blessed Life is worth the points is potentially debatable, but I've come to love it.

Daybreak, Infusion of Light, Speed of Light and Tower of Radiance are the things to read first as they're play-style changing.

The most important thing to remember whenever you do an instance or raid is to use the following macro when you begin and before and during every boss fight:
/yell HUG4HEALZ

You're so reliant on other peoples' positioning in order to heal through AoE that forcing this into peoples' minds constantly will be better than any micro-managed strategy I can offer, however, here's a go at a broad one:

Beacon tanks still. Spot heal the group with Holy Shock, and Word of Glory. Fill in the deficit on your tank (50% beacon these days) with Holy Light at high health or Divine Light at less than ~80%. Use your +output CDs liberally (Divine Favor is now awesome, Avenging Wrath, Guardian of the Ancient Kings). Forget using Divine Plea unless there's a phased lull in damage, even covering it with other cooldowns is risky - you need those cooldowns for when damage is higher than your maximum throughput and the return in mana is so painfully small that it simply isn't worth this risk.

[Elovan]

Holy Paladin on ptr is currently a lot of fun, I'll try and touch most major concerns people will have.

Edit: To prevent any confusion, this is a guide for 80 in 4.0.1, NOT for level 85 in Cataclysm. I do not have a Beta key, and would prefer not to give advice based on what I have not experienced.

Gear/Gems/Enchants - While the stat changes go into effect in 4.0.1, not much actually changes for us that we need to be concerned about. All of our mp5 will convert to spirit and we have about the same amount of sp from int, while haste and crit levels are the same. Once you start leveling stats will rapidly decay, but for 4.0.1 stat weights are pretty much exactly the same and there is no reason to start gemming/enchanting for other than int. What will change is that Plate Specialization will be introduced, which gives a +5% to intellect when wearing all plate. If you can find plate replacements for non plate, even if they are slight downgrades, this will help greatly. Reforging will also come in handy, as you can covert some crit into haste or mastery (if you have about 1k haste from gear just reforge to mastery).

Spec - http://wowtal.com/#k=wxD-dUU.a2y.paladin will feel the most like healing on live, while http://wowtal.com/#k=wmRPBXU.a2y.paladin will net you stronger heals. On either of these a point from Enlightened Judgements can be moved to Paragon of Virtue based on preference.

Healing Strategy - Forget everything you learned about Holy Paladin healing. We now have 3 standard heals: Holy Light which is now slow, weak, but super mana efficient; Flash of Light which is fast, decent strength, super mana inefficient, and Divine Light which is slow, super strong, and super mana inefficient.

Our primary goal will be to keep a steady stream of Holy Power flowing in through Holy Shock and Beacon and out through Word of Glory. Holy Shock is now one of our best heals, healing for a little more than Holy Light does for less mana, as well as giving Holy Power and proccing both Speed of Light and Infusion of Light. We want to Holy Shock pretty much on cooldown whenever we don't have 3 Holy Power, weaving Holy Lights in-between. We can also gain Holy Power by directly healing our Beacon with Holy Light, Flash of Light, or Divine Light, which is necessary now because Beacon only transfers 50% of healing done. Once we have 3 Holy Power we want to use it for Word of Glory, which heals for more than Holy Shock and costs 0 mana, but consumes all Holy Power. Never use Word of Glory when you don't have 3 Holy Power.

Divine Light you want to save for when little to none of it will over heal. Save this for times when health is less than 50%. Flash of Light is supposed to be used for when people are rapidly dropping, but generally Holy Shock will be more useful, so Flash of Light won't be used much. Our new end tree spell, Light of Dawn, is a cone healing effect that works best the more people it hits, so try and aim it at groups of people.

Procs - Holy now has a decent number of procs to watch out for. The first and easiest is Speed of Light, which procs every time you use Holy Shock and grants 30% spell haste to the next Holy Light or Divine Light. Infusion of Light still procs off of Holy Shock crits, but now reduces the cast time of Holy Light by 1.5s. Daybreak has a 20% chance to proc off of every Holy Light, Flash of Light, and Divine Light, and causes your next Holy Shock to not trigger a cd, allowing you to Holy Shock twice in a row. The final "proc" to watch out for is Eternal Glory. This talent gives Word of Glory a 30% chance to not consume Holy Power. This proc is godly, and you will sacrifice many gnomes to the RNG gods in return for a string of Word of Glorys.

Cooldowns - Divine Plea has been nerfed to return only 10% maximum mana (15% glyphed) while still reducing our heals by 50% on a 2 minute cd. You have to be much more careful when using this, as it will alter your healing by a much more significant amount than on live. Avenging Wrath is still the same, but Divine Favor has been completely reworked. It now increases spell haste and spell crit by 20% for 20s, a very potent cd.

Removed Spells - Divine Illumination, Seal of Light and Seal of Wisdom (have been combined into Seal of Insight, this will be the only seal we use), and Sacred Shield (this has become our mastery, every heal will place a shield that will absorb damage equal to X% of the heal and lasts 6s). Divine Sacrifice has been removed; Divine Guardian (the raid wall portion) still exists, but is out of reach for Holy Paladins.

[mcbubble]

Elovan,
You sir, are a scholar and a gentleman.
Thank you VERY much!

[Mokal]

I heard that it is better to start of with Divine Light and continue to spam with holy light, so the stronger shield from Divine light stays on?

[Elovan]

I heard that it is better to start of with Divine Light and continue to spam with holy light, so the stronger shield from Divine light stays on?

AFAIK, shields will roll up to a point, so starting with Divine Light and keeping it up with Holy Light will result in the same thing as Holy Light several times, as the Holy Light shields will stack until the point where it's the size of the first case. This is all based on my very unreliable "oh look, my shield's at this point right now" approach.

Elovan,
You sir, are a scholar and a gentleman.
Thank you VERY much!

Happy to help mcbubble ^_^

---------- Post added 2010-10-04 at 08:16 PM ----------

I forgot something, I will add this to the main post. 4.0.1 will also introduce the plate specialization that gives Holy Paladins a +5% to intellect when wearing all plate. It will be worth it to find plate pieces to replace non plate, but only if they are slight downgrades.

[toychristopher]

AFAIK, shields will roll up to a point, so starting with Divine Light and keeping it up with Holy Light will result in the same thing as Holy Light several times, as the Holy Light shields will stack until the point where it's the size of the first case. This is all based on my very unreliable "oh look, my shield's at this point right now" approach.

That isn't true. The shields do not "roll" in that manner and you will not build up a big shield by casting a bunch of holy lights. What happens is a small shield will not overwrite the amount of a big shield, but instead reset the duration. So if you cast diving light and then a bunch of holy lights the smaller shields from divine light do not add on, but refresh the duration.

I wish it worked the way you said it does! Sadly it doesn't.

I heard that it is better to start of with Divine Light and continue to spam with holy light, so the stronger shield from Divine light stays on?

In general the shields will be consumed so quickly because they are rather small, even coming from divine light, that it doesn't matter. Divine Light costs a lot of mana, so it's better to only use it when you actually need the heal from it.

[mcbubble]

I found this tutorial on youtube...it's short & sweet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua2ReKsuvJM&NR=1