Holy Paladin Guide - Updated for 4.3.4

[SargorVirm]

so the thought process is stacking spirit (without cutting intel potency) gives u the mana efficiency to use DL over HL as ur main heal correct?
i have directed him to hit this forum and read what was posted.

TY for the help

[Shanto94]

Great guide, it covers most of the important things, while at same time forgetting out a few things that could be added.
For instance, you mention that HoP (Hand of Protection) can be used if someone get aggro and then is probably going to die, and that it can dispell physical debuffs.
What you dont mention is how it can be used to prevent physical debuffs and physical aoe damage.
Lets start with 2 examples.
You are at magmaw (10man normal) with a pug (you was bored this week).
Hunter is kiting the small adds and is completely stuck in the corner (ok, he can get around the adds)
When magmaw decides to slam the ground at the side he is.
Because of the adds, he will need a priest to get out of there in time, but another example here is using HoP as the damage done by that attack is physical.
Another example about how it can prevent physical debuffs is when the boss got rules he/she have to follow, Nalorakk/Dakarra is good examples.
The charge they got follow theese rules:
Target furthest away target and charge. (I am not sure if it got a max range).
Now, it never check if they are immune or anything, they can still be targeted, so thats what happends. If HoP is there, not only will it remove the debuff, but it will also prevent him from getting the debuff under next charge and wasting his next attack. (This works for any attack not affected by the rules of immunity, which say that if target is immune, it shall be ignored and he will need to find a new target).
So, my point is that it dont only remove damages already happend, it also prevents them from happending.

[Deleted]

T12 4P is definitely going to be mandatory. Nobody is going to give up that amazing bonus for taking ONE piece with Crit on it.

Crit may actually be really close to Haste now after the healing Crit change.

I think it realy depends on if the 15th tick (2950) haste cap is reachable tbh. 2400 is about the max if you have the pure haste set if im right? i dont think we'll get 500 extra haste from upgrading from 372 to 390ish tbh.

It will be interesting whether once your over 1860, going for crit after that is a bigger hps gain than haste.

---------- Post added 2011-05-12 at 12:32 PM ----------

so the thought process is stacking spirit (without cutting intel potency) gives u the mana efficiency to use DL over HL as ur main heal correct?
i have directed him to hit this forum and read what was posted.

TY for the help

pretty much, although for 10mans as you dont have the freedom of mana tides you still have to craft in some holy lights for mana preservation. But you can get good use from Tower of Radiance and Divine Light for more WoG's and mana free healing.

[Sayl]

so the thought process is stacking spirit (without cutting intel potency) gives u the mana efficiency to use DL over HL as ur main heal correct?

Basically. (Meditation.) Its boost to regen allows for more DL casts. Whether you see DL or Beacon of Light top the logs/meters depends on the fight, but it's usually pretty close either way. HL should be avoided, generally speaking, because it's an expensive heal (think of it as emergency-only). DL provides much better return on the mana invested.

Reforging spirit into haste and mastery is nerfing his regen, which is even more detrimental with a smaller mana pool. Like it says on page one:

If a piece has Spirit and Haste, leave it be.
If a piece has Spirit and Crit, reforge the Crit to Haste.
If a piece has Spirit and Mastery, reforge the Mastery to Haste.
If a piece has Haste and Crit, reforge the Crit to Spirit.
If a piece has Haste and Mastery, reforge the Mastery to Spirit.
If a piece has Crit and Mastery, reforge the Mastery to Spirit (and try to find something better than that piece, seriously).

Hope this helps.

[Elovan]

Holy Paladin 2-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- Healing with Holy Shock has a 40% chance to grant you 6% of your base mana.

Holy Paladin 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- Your Divine Light, Flash of Light, and Holy Light spells also heal an injured target within 8 yards for 10% of the amount healed.

From front page, holy shit these bonuses are amazing, tier is even more fantastic than before.

[Deleted]

meh the 2 set is still meh, i liked the t11 4 set on holy radiance, the change to holy shock means i actually struggle to maintain the spirit proc now. generally only have it up at 60% uptime bceause hoyl shock is a wet fish healing wise.

its a definate buff from the last 2 set because i actually use holy shock unlike healing my beacon target. the 4 set is most likely a buff and its nice to see an actual number from 'nearby' target to 8 yards. having it on all 3 heals certainly makes it better for raid healing. I just hope if theres no target within 8 years, aka tank healing the 10% can heal the same target. But thats a hope. Ancestral awakening can so its certainly possible via coding.

Personally im not to bothered with the mana cost changes, it shows they realise that healing is already close to whats mana? spam healing. At least there trying to rectify this early instead of letting it go out of control like in wrath. buff to holy radiance is nice ofcourse and another speed boost could have its uses.

[Nillo]

1) meh the 2 set is still meh, i liked the t11 4 set on holy radiance.
2) the change to holy shock means i actually struggle to maintain the spirit proc now. generally only have it up at 60% uptime bceause hoyl shock is a wet fish healing wise.

1) In that state it's way better than t11 4pc and why the hell did you like the old t11 4pc?
2) For one Holy shock is still the best heal out there and two trying to "maintain" this proc is just ... wrong.

[Deleted]

the old 4 set i had the spirit proc at its maximum on most encounters bar the first 10-20 seconds depending on when the first AoE wave went out. this 4 set with holy shock you just cant keep up to its maximum without reducing hps because holy shock is that much worse than divine light.

[Sgtsparkles]

I find it very difficult to believe that you were healing appropriately and having HR on CD on a majority of the encounters.

[Deleted]

Magmaw - constant AoE damage
Omno - costant aoe damage
Chim - 30 sec cooldown is perfectly inline with masscre
Atra - modulation/searing flame mean theres always damage to be healed by it. ok the 40 seconds of Air phase probs means i wont use it there unless chased by it allows you to resset the HR cooldown to coincide with damage
Maloriak - probs the exception, altho its constantly on cd in black/red/green. Blue aswel if your melee fancy dpsing thru the debuff you can just aoe heal them during it.
Nef - normal 30 sec cooldown is in line with crackles, herioc its 10-20 seconds off.

Halfus, Fire breaths followed by the roars.
Valiona, black outs followed by whenever off cooldown in melee group for meteorite soaking. the rift damage late on aswel means always something to heal.
council, on cooldown
chogall, shadow aoe is perfectly lined up

conclave - certainly doesnt get much use when you dont move off frost the entire fight, altho the speed boost is great for moving from ice patches while freedom is on cooldown and you have 20+ stacks of the debuff
alakir - on cooldown from 80% downwards.

thats how.

---------- Post added 2011-05-13 at 11:33 PM ----------

Exorcism. The Denounce effect prevents targets from causing critical effects for the next 6 sec.

so you can, as holy cause your oppenents dps to stop critting, with "near" 100% uptime. as denounce is 100% proc chance from holy shock which is 6 sec cooldown.

While that sounds amazing and even fits into the 'defensive' healer that paladins have always been, thats going to be overpowered. espcially against things like frost dks that are reliant on a proccing auto crit mechanic. If it reaches live like that ill be amazed but it certainly make me want to step back into arena.

[Nillo]

1) Magmaw - constant AoE damage
2) Omno - costant aoe damage
3) Chim - 30 sec cooldown is perfectly inline with masscre
4) Atra - modulation/searing flame mean theres always damage to be healed by it. ok the 40 seconds of Air phase probs means i wont use it there unless chased by it allows you to resset the HR cooldown to coincide with damage
5) Halfus, Fire breaths followed by the roars.
6) Valiona, black outs followed by whenever off cooldown in melee group for meteorite soaking. the rift damage late on aswel means always something to heal.

thats how.

1) Ehrm no at the start of the fight and each headphase there's about 30 seconds where you don't need to use HR
2) Constant aoe? No
3) Why would you use HR for massacre?
4) Which again is quite a lot of them where you will not be using HR on cd

5) I do use it on cd here, but this is mainly because the melees are too stupid to dodge the fireballs.
6) Still far from using it on cd

On neither of those fights I can see HR uptime going far over 60%.

[FiveDkp]

Tortilla
You realise Exorcism is no longer instant right?

[Valamivan]

Sorry, I'm might being thick here, but can somebody ellaborate why every time we weight haste against other stats the explanations seem to assume that Holy Radiance is the only spell we have? If we haven't got Holy Radiance would haste fall far behind crit and mastery? Because again in the 10-man environment Holy Radiance often doesn't get as much use as in 25-man, therefore gaining an extra tick of it does very little for us, 10-man raiders.
But even for 25-man raiding I just can't understand that when you reach an extra tick of HR (or two in future tiers, maybe three, who knows) then how does that justifies going for crit and mastery instead. Does crit suddenly becomes a reliable, non-rng stat? Does mastery start to affect heals that otherwise it doesn't?

Again, sorry if I'm just missing some obvious maths here, ellaborating would help.
Maybe when I'm tweaking spec and gear on per-encounter basis I should choose non-haste gear for encounter where I cannot stack with other for some reason?

[FiveDkp]

Sorry, I'm might being thick here, but can somebody ellaborate why every time we weight haste against other stats the explanations seem to assume that Holy Radiance is the only spell we have? If we haven't got Holy Radiance would haste fall far behind crit and mastery? Because again in the 10-man environment Holy Radiance often doesn't get as much use as in 25-man, therefore gaining an extra tick of it does very little for us, 10-man raiders.
But even for 25-man raiding I just can't understand that when you reach an extra tick of HR (or two in future tiers, maybe three, who knows) then how does that justifies going for crit and mastery instead. Does crit suddenly becomes a reliable, non-rng stat? Does mastery start to affect heals that otherwise it doesn't?

Again, sorry if I'm just missing some obvious maths here, ellaborating would help.
Maybe when I'm tweaking spec and gear on per-encounter basis I should choose non-haste gear for encounter where I cannot stack with other for some reason?

Mastery doesn't work with most of our spells
More casts = More poti procs = more healing through beacon.
You can use judgments then cast a hasted DL.
LOWER GCD, 1 haste point is 1.1785 haste points raid buffed
1.09 x 1.05 x 1.03

[Sgtsparkles]

Again, sorry if I'm just missing some obvious maths here, ellaborating would help.
Maybe when I'm tweaking spec and gear on per-encounter basis I should choose non-haste gear for encounter where I cannot stack with other for some reason?

To the last of my knowledge, even if every single shield you place with mastery is used, haste provides more throughput even then. The gap is widened even further the more you use holy radiance and beacon. The speed of casting spells is just that important.

I wouldn't sweat it too much though, in a few months huge changes are coming in, or they may end up being small, point is there isn't a lot of 4.2 data out yet.

[thoukaia]

To the last of my knowledge, even if every single shield you place with mastery is used, haste provides more throughput even then. The gap is widened even further the more you use holy radiance and beacon. The speed of casting spells is just that important.

Not implying that mastery is good or something like that but if what you describe was the case then mastery would be a lot better than haste since it provides both a significant HPM and HPS increase whereas haste is only HPS...

[Sgtsparkles]

Not implying that mastery is good or something like that but if what you describe was the case then mastery would be a lot better than haste since it provides both a significant HPM and HPS increase whereas haste is only HPS...

The only HPM haste effects is HR, so yes, it is only HPS.

Obviously mastery doesn't ever happen anywhere even close to the scenario, but I believe the example was to point out that even in the BEST mastery circumstances it doesn't provide similar HPS.

[Deleted]

I dont get it why do so many holy paladins choose haste over crit? i mean i know or spells are slow but the more crit u have the more uptime u have from your talents that make your divine light and your holy light extremely fast and dont forget that there changing the way crit works for healers making it 200% instead of 150%.

---------- Post added 2011-05-18 at 11:16 AM ----------

oh and also something for the guide hand of sacrefice on the MT or OT when he's about to take alot of dmg dont forget to pop divine protection aswell on yourself this does increase your healing because your self heal will come in use.

[Nillo]

I dont get it why do so many holy paladins choose haste over crit? i mean i know or spells are slow but the more crit u have the more uptime u have from your talents that make your divine light and your holy light extremely fast and dont forget that there changing the way crit works for healers making it 200% instead of 150%.

Because crit takes ~ 50% more rating points for half the effect of haste - not even Infusion of Light and the higher bonus to HPM from crit can't offset that.

[Valamivan]

Here is a spreadsheet I created for myself to plan forward for 4.2, but I guessed I might as well share it, as maybe other people would like to use it for quick comparisons (T12 vs offset) or whatnot. It is basicly just a list of the items.
The data is from the PTR databases (MMO and WoWHead), so no guarantees that it will stay the same. I especially expect the sockets and socket bonuses to change, since currently every socket bonus is INT. It can also be incomplete (no holy paladin waste to drop from Firelands?), but I'll try to keep it up-to-date.
But you'll see the list is kinda long, so I assume it includes both raid drops and Valor Point-purchasable items.
The filtering was fairly loose (even included off-hand items), conditions were: Intellect>0; Hit=0; Resilience=0; and of course 'Usable by paladins'.

From current state T12 will be obvious choices for head and legs, and even shoulders despite the crit on it (offset has mastery). Chest vs Hands needs some maths, but by first look offset chest could be better.

Edit (26-05-11): Updated to include new (heroic) items. There seem to be a heroic version for everything (even for reputation rewards) so can't tell if VP items are included after all.
Edit 2: After posts from Atris we can take a fairly good guess on which items are from VP, hence they are indicated now. 391 VP and rep items are still unexplained, only theories about possible ways to obtain them. (Some people suggest that the purpose of Crystallized Firestone - which seems to be dropping from all heroic bosses - will be to upgrade such items.)

Edit (27-05-11): Is now final (well, hopefully). WoWHead has posted yesterday the loot table of the bosses so I filled in all the source fields. Rock on!