Holy pallies and divine light

[Vereinigung]

Hi guys,
I've been looking at a lot of logs and seeing that a vast majority of top pally healers seem to be using divine light as their number one go to spell, but my question is how are you managing this mana wise? Is there a certain gear and haste cap at which it becomes more efficent to use divine light then holy light? I feel like I'd just suck my mana dry if I was popping it like it seems most people are so I wanted to see what you all were doing and how you were managing it. I just switched from my hunter to my holy pally as my main, so I'm sure there are things that I need to learn. I've always been a big believer in HPS doesn't matter just keep people alive, but clearly this seems to be a trend and I want to make sure I understand it if it'll improve my healing, especially as we go into the harder HMs like Val and Therel and Cho.

[Martinussen]

keep using divine plea whenever your assigned targets dont need alot of healing, and SPAM DAT JUDGMENT.

[Aftersight]

Divine Light isn't really too hard on your mana as long as you are keeping up your Judgments and melee swings with Seal of Light. I tend to use Divine Light whenever I see large amounts of damage go out and in between those times I'll weave in Holy Lights for low sustainable damage. It really helps during spike damage which seems to be the theme in Cataclysm when it comes to bosses and with Beacon on your tank you should really have no problem keeping people alive without any issues with mana while staying on top of the HPS charts. The key is using your trinkets/regen abilities to your advantage don't be afraid to pop Divine Plea or any of your regen abilities when damage is minimum.

[quietstrm07]

While I'm not as high end as some of the holy pallies you'll see around here (guild is currently only 3/13 on 25 HM's), there seems to be more of a style which allows for the greater use of divine light. Sure higher amounts of intellect and spirit can help with this, but their are a few major things that I find help aide in success with casting a larger number of Divine Lights:

1) Remember to use Judgements - Judging allows you to proc Seal of Insight even when you are at range from the enemy
2) When feasible, stand in melee range of the boss - This allows for increased SoI procs between casts
3) Properly use your CDs - Timing Divine Plea for phases with reduced healing needs ensures you can take the full benefit of its effect. Other output CDs also can help in reducing the amount of casting that is needed
4) Take advantage of Lay on Hands - with the glyph, not only is this a powerful spell but also returns a respectable amount of mana
5) Know when you can conserve mana - being able to change to Holy Light when raid damage taken is low allows you to save mana for heavy damage phases
6) Taking advantage of holy power - casting holy shock essentially on CD to build up holy power is definitely useful in increasing your HPM.

I think that pretty much covers at least the things I do. I suppose also using Hand of Sacrifice is a decent way of reducing the healing your target needs, which can also be used to switch to lower cost spells (depending on the fight of course)

[Joesgetndown]

Sometimes Divine light is needed to keep people alive. Even with fewer casts it can easily top your healing meters. Without being your go-to heal.

[perasite]

There really isn't a "wrong" way to play as a Holy Pally. We run our 25 man's with 3 Holy Pallies. We are 9/13 HM as of last night's Nef kill (finally.) Each of us pallies has a very different style of play:

One pally uses Crusader Strike constantly and uses AoE heals at every possible opportunity, he casts Holy Lights between AoE's and almost never uses Divine Light. He judges just once per minute. He typically has the highest HPS of the three of us, and almost always has the most mana. He does a ton of raid healing, but I'm not sure how much tank healing he does.

The second pally uses Crusader Strike frequently and uses AoE heals pretty frequently, casting Divine Light between his AoE's. This player uses a lot of AoE heals and a lot of Divine Lights. He judges fairly frequently, probably every 20 seconds or so. His mana is typically pretty low as compared to the first pally, but never so low as to be oom. He typically is assigned as a tank healer and does a very good job at it.

I almost never (OK, never) use Crusader Strike, use AoE heals only during AoE damage, and cast Divine Light non-stop. I am the type of player you are asking about. I use almost exclusively Divine Light, casting Holy Shock on cooldown and using LoD when I am grouped or WoG if I can't hit 6 targets with LoD. I rarely use Holy Light. I use mana CD's on every cooldown, and I use a Potion of Concentration on almost every progression attempt. I churn through the mana. I'm almost always on the verge of oom, but I know how to manage my mana well, and regenerate it at a constant enough pace to make sure that I can always still cast. I have the 4 piece T11, so casting Holy Shock on CD is important as it helps keep my mana regen up. I also judge almost on cooldown. If someone needs a heal, that takes priority, but if I have a choice between casting a maintenance heal on a raid member or judging, I'll typically judge and let the raid healers heal the raid.

Nothing wrong with any of those playstyles, I just think it's interesting that we each play so differently when using the same class. Totally different than Wrath, where if you weren't spamming Holy Light till the cows came home, you were doing it wrong.

[Aftersight]

I really don't think the mana cost for Crusader Strike is worth it, Using Holy Shock on CD is all I use for Holy Power generation and I usually tend to ALWAYS stand with melee to get those extra melee swings in while popping judgement on CD. I actually RARELY use Light of Dawn and find that Divine Light and Holy Radiance with Word of Glorys is enough for AoE healing. Pallies are considered as single target healers and their AoE is dwarfed when in comparison to other healers so let the other healers do their job while you do yours. My healing group is usually 1-2 Pallies, 1 Druid, 1 Holy/Disc Priest, 1-2 Shaman.

[Vereinigung]

Thank you so much everyone for your insight. My RL generally groups us healers in the ranged, but I'll ask if maybe I can switch to melee range to get into swinging distance. I'm still adjusting to when to pop my divine plea on fights, as for example H Chim, I feel like there isn't ever really a time when I can just let me healing go. I've been sneaking it in after my massacre, and praying to baby budda that more then 2 of my people get smacked. I'll try and weave it in more with my healing rotation. Grats on the nef kill, I can't wait to attempt that fight! I learned to heal in pvp so I'm very reactive sometimes and I think I need to learn to be more structured in my healing. Are there any websites that you guys are reading for holy pally stuff or youtube videos that you watch? I'd like to learn as much as I can. I'm big on using my LoD especially when I'm beaconing the tank. Last question, do you find yourselves using aura mastery? I'm debating taking it out of my build, but if it's useful I'd rather keep it and learn when to use it.

[quietstrm07]

On Chim, I'm typically assigned to healing the tanks (go figure) where I beacon the "main tank" and focus on whichever tank is going to take the double attack next. If the double attack tank is nearly topped off in terms of health, I tend to pop my divine plea and call out on vent to my other healers that I'm regening mana. Most cases, this creates relatively little healer strain and allows me to take advantage of the mana regen.

In terms of aura mastery, it can be a powerful talent if you learn the right time to use it. Cho'gall shadow orders, Magmaw's magma spew, ODS aoe flame attack (can't remember the name). I just wish our resist aura included nature so it could help with a few other major boss mechanics. But when it comes to progression, anything that reduces raid damage seems to come in pretty handy

[perasite]

Pally healers can be in either ranged or melee, but if you are having mana issues, melee is a great place to be. Honestly, I prefer to be in melee. We wear plate for a reason. If you are in melee, you can typically be assured that your LoD will hit 6 people as well, so that is good since it'll transfer to your beacon.

I highly recommend Aura Mastery. We have our Prot Pally run Devo Auro, our Ret run Ret Aura, and all 3 Holy Pallies run Resistance Aura. We setup an Aura Mastery rotation for quite a few fights so that any time there is large fire, frost or shadow damage bursts, we can mitigate as much of that as possible. quietstrm07 mentioned a couple scenarios, but we also use it on Nef when the lava pool is rising, on Atramedes for Modulation, and during Maloriak's red phase.

[Nillo]

I highly recommend Aura Mastery. We have our Prot Pally run Devo Auro, our Ret run Ret Aura, and all 3 Holy Pallies run Resistance Aura.

Your ret should be using concentration aura, because ret aura is useless.

[kaloth]

Well I use to be like that to but U use divien light when it's A fight were tank takes alot of damige.Like halfus and maloriak and other fights but the best advice I can give is don't be afaid to go OOM. I was always afraid that I was going to oom and wipe the raid then i stoped worrying about that and I as a healer became much better in awaresness and healing.

[Deleted]

I tend to cast DL a lot in raid because HL just doesn't cut it on most bosses. Mostly because we are back to tank healing or at least i am and therefore HL can not keep a tank up. Just downed Magmaw hc and looked at the log. I did 44 DL and 13 HL on that fight and it's not because our tanks are bad geared but because the dmg i huge on that fight.

[Asrialol]

Sometimes Divine light is needed to keep people alive. Even with fewer casts it can easily top your healing meters. Without being your go-to heal.

Then again, who cares about topping healing meters.

[carrierz]

Then again, who cares about topping healing meters.

my e-penis care

[Simca]

Your ret should be using concentration aura, because ret aura is useless.

Eh, in some fights Concentration Aura is just as worthless (Maloriak, Atramedes non-heroic), but I agree with you for most fights (Halfus, Chimaeron, etc).


As for meleeing, it is rarely worth it to not cast and instead melee. However, it is very smart to have your Holy Shock macroed as
/cast Holy Shock
/startattack

If you do this, when you use your 3rd Holy Shock to get full Holy Power, you'll usually cast your Word of Glory next (especially after 4.2). Word of Glory does not reset the swing timer so you'll get a free melee (917 mana). They changed this because of Ret and Prot paladins getting screwed over when they wanted to heal with their holy power.

It'll go something like: whatever --> Divine Light (swing timer restarts) --> Holy Shock (swing timer restarts) --> Word of Glory (swing occurs after the Word of Glory) --> whatever

The arrows indicate a GCD and the paratheses indicate where the swing happens. Without the startattack (or a well-timed rightclick to the boss), you won't melee. Your GCD will always be less than your swing speed, so you cannot melee and cast with any other spell other than Word of Glory unless you delay casts (and you never should).


As for Crusader Strike, it is extremely situational. If you're in a situation where you are meleeing, you might as well be using Crusader Strike too. However, outside of that and some rare times where you really want Light of Dawn (Cho'gall I guess), there aren't a lot of uses.

[Deleted]

If we had a spammable AoE heal like chain heal or prayer of healing then we would use those and that would be our top heal but we dont.

In times of extreme damage and need of which healing, Divine Light is are only realy viable heal. Not because its a great heal, numbers wise it heals less than Healing Touch/Greater healing wave but more than Greater heal at least. But as i said, we have no viable alternative button to press so its what we use.

Also Judge lots, its better to judge and Divine light than to cast 3 holy lights.

[Bostonian]

Yes, I agree with a lot of whats being said. Especially, after spamming it, knowing when to step away from it in certain parts of the fight to not go ooom. Plus, having gear with mostly Intel & Spirit/Haste (as secondary stats) helps a lot.
In 25 mans, my top spells are (sometimes in different orders):
1) Beacon of Light
2) Light of Dawn
3) Divine Light
4) Holy Shock
5) Holy Radiance
I am one of those healers Parasite talked about that loves to build up holy power and spam LoD as much as possible to heal up raid in 25 man, but inbetween do a lot of Divine Light casts. I will use HL on sitatuations of just doing midigation healing and FoL for emergenicy fast heals. I always judge too

I have a question though, why is Ret Aura useless (I noticed someone say that)???

[Deleted]

I dunno about 25m, but in 10m I can't think of too many situations where using CS would be worth the GCD and mana cost. I'd rather DL the beaconed tank if I want some extra HP, although I suppose I can see the use of it in some situations where you wanna spam the crap out of AoE heals, like Al'akir phase 2. Doing it on most fights though? No thanks.

I have a question though, why is Ret Aura useless (I noticed someone say that)???

Because it does minuscule amounts of damage to any boss in the game, it likely won't even do 0.01% of the boss' health over the course of the entire fight. I might be off in that number but it really is very little, conc on the other hand actually has a use on most fights. Of course if you're on a fight where conc has 0 use then sure, go for ret. Better than nothing I suppose.

[Mattsvaliant]

Then again, who cares about topping healing meters.

He said top your healing meters, not top the healing meters.