Holy Paladin in heros

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So I just hit 329 ilvl yesterday but due to random disconnects i actually only completed my first heros today. A couple of things I noticed at first: Using the lfd at this stage of gearing seems suicidal. Getting a group with 2 fury warrs and a dk is just bullshit and you can just drop group right then and there.

Secondly:
I went with a couple of guildies and the first instance we hit was hc sfk. I was supposed to be ret while a resto shaman would do the healer. But the first boss proved impossible for him to heal, even though I would reckon him a good healer. For me it wasn't a cakewalk, but at least it was actually doable. Granted, we refined our approach after the first two wipes, but the manareg of holy is just godly when compared to a resto shaman. We finished the instance except for the third boss with the adds, where the ridiculously huge d&d and the cone attack kind of screwed us over. Especially because I as a holy pally provided the only cc for the adds and a shadow priest would have helped immensely. The last boss was easy as the newly elemental shaman interrupted EVERY SINGLE CURSED BULLET! i can't really comment on how hard to heal it would have been without that, but i was impressed. He doesn't really do dps and yet he managed to catch a 1 sec cast every time it was casted!

After we finished the instance without wipes due to me going oom or not having the healpower to do the job we queued again, this time we got grim batol. I went ret again, doing mediocre dmg but providing good utility (hand of sacrifice, hand of protection, reliable cc, tripple interrupt for dragonkin and elemantals with glyph of holy wrath).
Finally we got the hang of it and we downed the first boss after one wipe. Then comes forgemaster Throngus:

He wiped the floor with us 3 times. So much unavoidable dmg ( it's almost impossible not to get blasted by the shield at least once or twice) we ended up double healing it which was easy enough, but it seems insanely hard to solo heal.

then came the dragon guy with the prof add. After we wiped twice when the shaman healed, I took over again and after 2 or 3 more wipes due to add fail, don't stand in fire fail or don't stand in front of the dragon fail we downed him. I was almost completely oom, having used lay on hands eggshell twice and divine plea once, but it was LEAPS and BOUNDS ahead of how the shamy fared. When we tried him with the shaman healer he was oom when the dragon was at 60 % or so.

For the end boss i just stayed heal and after wiping once due to some dpsers being surprised by there being a second add and another time because the shadow thing was somewhere completely retarded we downed him third try easily, I had about 55k of 72k mana left.


So my observation: of all healers, paladin seems to have the best manaregen (judging seal, plea, lay on hands, free heals). very good cooldowns (DON'T forget hand of sacrifice! its basically a 30 % mitigation cd because all the dmg you take is healed by your judging and healing others) and actually very good group healing capabilities.

so my question: what has your experience in heros been? do you think paladins are fine? What do you think how the other healing classes are atm? I would love to hear more about how we are doing in heroics and what you think of the new paladin healing style!

P.S.: I didn't have this much fun wiping in a five man in a looooooong time

[Velael]

So far, my experience in heroics has been excellent. The first 2 that I did were a challenge (Throne of the Tides and Lost City of the Tol'vir), but since then they've been pretty smooth sailing. The only mana-related wipes that I've caused were due to the group using an unrefined strategy that involved too much spread-out damage intake. Other than those, mana has not been an issue--just use your Judgement every time it's off of its cooldown.

I think holy paladins are fine once you reach 2600 noncombat regeneration. Before that, things can be tough, but nothing you can't overcome. I personally love the new healing style, and I believe that healing is now--by far--the most difficult role.

For you, I would suggest running regulars until you have no more than 2 items below item level 333. I found heroics to be much easier once I was in full regular blues.

[Bankrupted]

Mana regen for shamans is beastly, my m8s on his 5 man hc shaman healer regenerates 5 k mp5 with mana tide up in combat, spirit is win! + tell him to get the HoO HC spirit proc trink, 1.7 k spirit really helps =)

[Nickishulk]

So far the only thing that's really killed me is over pulling trash. I hate it when tanks charge in and don't even bother to put up marks for kill orders or for CC. Other then that a lot of the bosses haven't really been that horrible. On the forgemaster boss an easy tactic that i found was to group everyone behind the boss in melee range and wait for him to turn around while hitting holy radiance, while in the 15 seconds or so he stays facing the other direction I cast holy lights on the tank to keep holy power up. When he turns again we run to the other side and boom LoD and a holy shock for anyone that stood too long.

One very useful thing to do for your mana regen is to pop your guardian when your low on mana, that way you get two casts for one (since guardian does your exact same heal for the next 6 heals). Not sure how many of you are blood elves but don't forget to mana tap!....errr I mean arcane torrent.

[Ralan]

I've been using the LFD and most of the pallies I get to heal me oom almost every pull. They seem to cast DL and FoL like it's going out of style. Is this normal practice or is that just people healing big, expecting big damage. As a prot pally I'm about 20-30% of my healing and I use my CD often. Seems odd they should oom every pull I think.

[Nickishulk]

It all depends on how much damage the tank is currently taking, I start off with rolling holylights to get my holy power us so I can get a word of glory off as soon as a tank takes real damage. If I know its just tank damage on the pull I'll cast holy shock on him if not I'll use it on the dps to try and keep them at or around 75% hp. There are quite a few trash pulls where we need to spam fol to keep the tanks up, but not every single one. I think the biggest thing to over come is the wrath bravado of going in, pulling the entire room and expecting to survive. It's just not gonna happen.

[309blank]

interesting comments so far. I guess what is new for players is that it depends far more on the dps than before whether you will make it in a fight. Nobody can save idiot dps (or afford to save them, really) from themselves when they stupidly stand in stuff. Often enough it just oneshots them. But I think it makes a bossfight a bossfight again.

[Deleted]

Well my only experience so far has been heroic Shadowfang. We were completely new to the boss, apart from having to explain the bosses before we attempted from a strategy on the internet. First boss completely destroyed us time and time again because one dps was interrupting the heal that get you back up after Asphictiate. When we got that under control we did him well enough. We wiped on trash a couple of times cause i wasnt ready for the damage. In the other bosses we did well, except for the 3rd(?) boss with the 2 adds and the incoming adds that heal him. We skipped that after about 7-8 wipes, we just did't have it.

But really holy paladin healing feels great, the only frustrating thing is seeing how shitty and little HolyLight healing is. 333ilvl with 2k mp5 in combat buffed so obviously i m gearing up. But one thing is for sure. You have to give it your best shot to down anything. Second too late and it s all gone to hell

[Deleted]

Was more of a challenge when in greens/333 gear, but had no problems with proper CC. Now I'm full 346+a few epics and we have abandoned CC alltogether (wotlk style). I've also been healing raids and feel that holy paladins are in a really good spot.

The regen gets really good with gear, which allows you to use your less mana efficient heals on a regular basis, especially divine light.

[Funkybunch]

Holy paladins are far and away the best healers currently in the game. We are absolutely blowing away every other healer on the meter, and its not even close. If you are struggling greatly with your paladin healer, you should probably investigate a different playstyle, because I imagine you are doing something wrong, since our healing model is night and day different then it was in ICC

[Deleted]

Im a tank, am very careful with pulls, use all the CC that the random groups give me, be it a hunter trap, hex, sap, fear, or even mind control (awesome for Vortex and the healing mob, MC it and can heal 100k per heal) and i have found that out of all the healers i have had, paladins seem to have the edge over the others. Rarely do i find myself in a problem with pala healers, i have had some very good healers of all classes, but i have learnt to fear priests and shamans more than druids or paladins. I dont know if in my personal experience its just whether i get good geared healers or not, but from the amount of times i have had a healer go Oom on a boss fight at 50% even with good tactics and CDs shamans and priests seem to be worse for wear.
Feel free to correct me if im wrong as i said, may just have been unlucky with the priest and shaman healers i have had

[Swiftzy]

I've done somewhere around 20-25 heroics thus far, and as far as i can tell, Holy Paladins are by far the best healer atm. You can say w/e you want but the truth is there, Holy Paladins have an insane amount of regen, and simply just do not run out of mana as fast as other classes. The ammount of healing they can push is compareable to all the other healers, maybe even better.

[Deleted]

Ye holy paladins are good healers atm, i'm farming heroics (i must say with a guild group so all decent dps and a decent tank) but i'm having no problems wit hany of the heroic bosses, never go oom, and nobody ever dies due to low healing output on my end, so i'm happy with how we heal atm

[309blank]

Holy paladins are far and away the best healers currently in the game. We are absolutely blowing away every other healer on the meter, and its not even close. If you are struggling greatly with your paladin healer, you should probably investigate a different playstyle, because I imagine you are doing something wrong, since our healing model is night and day different then it was in ICC

I don't know where you read that i was complaining? i think paladin healers are in a very good spot right now and a lot of fun to play as well! That doesn't mean that when we don't know bosses that we too can wipe, which happened to us quite a bit, as we only read up on strats if we couldn't figure it out on our own in 2 or 3 tries. Going in blind is hard, don't underestimate it.