Holy Paladin 5.0.4 Guide

[Stevemcqeen]

Yep and I agree with him. HPM is important but to justify Mastery as a superior stat by not exploring every option is lacking. Everything needs to be poked, prodded and tested. This is the joy of theorycraft.

TLR - math makes haste look good, real situations say otherwise

I have tested haste on the beta, and in the current iteration of the game it has proved to be less useful than mastery. Holy Radiance no longer has a HoT component, extra ticks from EF don't matter since either way the gain/loss is negligible and add the fact that SS would provide more healing over the duration anyways. Yes you can use EF on multiple people to make it more worthwhile, but even in 10m LoD should outperform WoG/EF so why waste HP on them( apart from situational stuff ). The only thing haste has going for it right now is the fact that it, as always, provides the best way to counteract high tank damage. The problem that stems from having that advantage is you are stuck with the downside of using a stat that eats through mana we do not have.

Why did we love haste early on in cata progresion? High tank damage and HR spam + extra ticks from the HoT... We had the mana to sustain it and haste synergized well across everything we needed to do.

Later in the expansion with the rising buff, making a switch to mastery was optimal due to the amount of over healing being generated.

What is the problem currently? High tank damage will still exist during Mists progression, but we no longer gain anything worthwhile in respect to extra ticks and we certainly cannot maintain the mana required by haste and expect to see the end of a fight.

You can math your way to haste somehow being the best stat, but the fact remains we do not play the game with pencil and paper, our class( and really all healers) cannot currently support the mana hungry play style haste demands.

I'll believe you tested both haste and mastery on the beta, but I also think that if you came to the conclusion that haste is superior, you either (a) have some crazy awesome strat that I don't know about and would love to hear or (b) simply aren't comfortable healing with mastery as your primary stat and do not know how to fully utilize it.

Math is half the battle, applying the dynamics of real situations is where decisions should be made.

[PlatedPriest]

thank you for this guide. i have decide to come back to the light. haven't played or been interested in a holy paladin since wrath. now i can't wait

[Azshira]

thank you for this guide. i have decide to come back to the light. haven't played or been interested in a holy paladin since wrath. now i can't wait

Welcome back my friend

[Bissah]

Could you not use GoAK to get 40% haste then pop divine favor and use holy avenger to gain 3 hp with crusader strike and spam EF giving at least 20 ticks? With this strat you could get 7 EF with atleast 16 ticks of EF. And in a 10m situation would be better then spamming LoD?

[Tuccoyote265]

Oh boy, here we go with the Mastery nonsense again. From what I have seen on the tooltips, wowhead etc, our mastery was unchanged from what it is on Live right now (err yesterday), did I miss something? So what made it all of the sudden useful? It seems to me that it still suffers the exact same drawbacks in 5.04 that it did in every patch before that (the effect doesn't last long enough, person with mastery bubble doesn't take damage before the shield falls off etc). So why is it better now? I understand we have mana issues and I understand our big heals are even more expensive and that our raid healing spells just got nerfed back to Wrath days and I understand that a few more spells give a pittance of strength to the individual bubbles, but how does that make our least useful stat in Cata better? Especially since it still has the exact same drawbacks?

Also, I would like to mention that this "spirit>master>intellect>haste>crit" priority mantra is the exact same mantra that everyone on this same board was so ecstatic about before every single patch in Cata. "OMG, the sky is falling, quick regem/reforge to spirit then mastery" was what you all said and were wrong every time. I'm not saying that this won't ultimately play out the same way as every patch before this one, just saying, food for thought before you get yourself all worked up into a lather.

P.S. yes, I used a lot of run-on sentences, deal with it (and apparently a fragment)

P.S.S. About the comment about using numbers to solve the issues. Before Cata, we all used to say that you just can't look at the numbers to see how you are healing. But all through out Cata, that was not true. Every single ability, spell, effect etc could and was numerically quantified and you literally had to look at the numbers to see how you were healing. While it wasn't obvious to people who are not good at reading charts and doing formulas, it was very clear to those of us who are good at that. It even matched up with strictly observational data, you could look at someone in a raid and say "I don't think they were a real help" and then go to the logs and determine within a few minutes that was true and what they were doing wrong. So unless blizz is going back to pre-Cata days and hiding the real numbers and plugging up the API to not spit out all of the info, please stop saying "you can't use numbers to figure this out".

[Deleted]

SH is probably the weakest out of the 3 talents. The problem is you must judge 3 times (which costs mana) it also costs a valuable gcd. Sure you get a nice heal after it but a shield that costs zero mana and stays for 30 seconds absorbing damage or a brilliant free cast heal which has a small HoT is much better. But it is your choice

I'd be inclined to agree. It isn't something I have done the math for yet, and whilst chances are the GCD's and mana cost of Judgement will justify a free Flash of Light and a nice 10% larger heal, the effect probably wouldn't be as large as the other 2 talents. You'd also have to use a glyph slot for it. If it turned out mathematically to be stronger, it will probably only be pretty niche and only benefit Holy Radiance enough to be worth it.

Haste and Mastery do not affect holy power generation.

Haste does affect Holy Power generation. No idea how you could be under the impression that it doesn't.

[Azshira]

@Tuccoyote: The community has long since evolved from 2 expansions ago (well almost 2). Logs are almost mandatory for raiding guilds , people understand numbers more, there's more flexibility in X, Y and Z on graphs and charts etc. In WOTLK mana did not matter, you couldn't go oom realistically and it was just "SPAM SPAM SPAM".

"I understand we have mana issues and I understand our big heals are even more expensive and that our raid healing spells just got nerfed back to Wrath days", I don't follow this line, our healing was excellent in WOTLK, we had no great Aoe spell, but we still had the best single healing going and topping meters was a walk in the park (not that meters always matter). I remember during cata patches I heard most people saying: haste, haste, haste. Mastery was being tooled around with during cata, as it was still new, so of course people thought when it got changed it would be superior etc, that was not the case, nor is it really bad during cata, haste just simply was better.

Now where mana matters, a lot more than end of cata, we go back to the drawing board, see that we cannot spam heals, because the system is changed. Mastery is a great absorb, it was changed to affect all our heals, and several talents, it is in that, that it shines. It can add raidwide absorbs to help not only you, but other healers conserve mana, sure absorbing 18% (my current mastery on beta at lvl90) of a 120k heal might not seem a big deal but that's a potential 21k on a target, that can stack by the way to way more, that could save you potentially a cast. What if you have a raidwide shield stacking slowly until an aoe phase, it could save you 1 cast perhaps of a HoR. Haste, which is good, cannot offer such benefits. There is nothing bad about haste, it's only downside is if we struggle with mana, then we cannot just keep casting to our hearts content which diminishes it's value. Mastery is a simple stat with a larger picture.

---------- Post added 2012-08-28 at 11:28 PM ----------

Haste does affect Holy Power generation. No idea how you could be under the impression that it doesn't.

It does but you probably would not want it to, unless you spam big and expensive heals, which you should not. So it may affect it due to faster cast, but you will be oom far faster than you having those few extra HP in a fight.

[Deleted]

Im normally just a stalker around the forums.. But i wanted to ask a few questions (:

Mastery still works the same way right? It will only appear on a target if it is already on full hp right? How will you make those big shields your talking about without wasting too much mana? Using Holy light a holy shock? Will you build any meaningful shields with just those 2 spells?

The mastery mechanic always felt strange to me.. Healing someone already at full Hp seems weird.. Thats why i never went mastery only getting some cause of the soft haste cap.. But even so the only time i even bother with mastery is pre combat when making a shield for the tank.. After that im always occupied healing something else.. And i dont have time to waste trying to build a shield up.. And if i do i just throw a couple heals on the tank to make a mini shield but the times were i dont have anyone to effectively heal are normally few.

[Pasture]

Mastery still works the same way right? It will only appear on a target if it is already on full hp right? .

Mastery appears on a target with any amount of HP. It's X% of the heal. How much health the target has is irrelevant to whether the shield applies.

---------- Post added 2012-08-29 at 12:37 AM ----------

Oh boy, here we go with the Mastery nonsense again.

The argument is mana matters and mastery is more mana efficient. It's a potent argument for the start of an expansion. I think everyone recognises haste is the better hps stat.

[zepyjoe]

Im normally just a stalker around the forums.. But i wanted to ask a few questions (:

Mastery still works the same way right? It will only appear on a target if it is already on full hp right? How will you make those big shields your talking about without wasting too much mana? Using Holy light a holy shock? Will you build any meaningful shields with just those 2 spells?

The mastery mechanic always felt strange to me.. Healing someone already at full Hp seems weird.. Thats why i never went mastery only getting some cause of the soft haste cap.. But even so the only time i even bother with mastery is pre combat when making a shield for the tank.. After that im always occupied healing something else.. And i dont have time to waste trying to build a shield up.. And if i do i just throw a couple heals on the tank to make a mini shield but the times were i dont have anyone to effectively heal are normally few.

NO mastery will bubble a low HP player also.........
If someone at 50k hp you DL for 30k with 20% mastery then that player has 80k hp and a 6k bubble

[Azshira]

Im normally just a stalker around the forums.. But i wanted to ask a few questions (:

Mastery still works the same way right? It will only appear on a target if it is already on full hp right? How will you make those big shields your talking about without wasting too much mana? Using Holy light a holy shock? Will you build any meaningful shields with just those 2 spells?

The mastery mechanic always felt strange to me.. Healing someone already at full Hp seems weird.. Thats why i never went mastery only getting some cause of the soft haste cap.. But even so the only time i even bother with mastery is pre combat when making a shield for the tank.. After that im always occupied healing something else.. And i dont have time to waste trying to build a shield up.. And if i do i just throw a couple heals on the tank to make a mini shield but the times were i dont have anyone to effectively heal are normally few.

As pasture answered, it appears at any hp, basically the heal you cast puts a % of the heal onto the target(s) in an absorb. Let's say you healed for 100k and you had 10% mastery, that's 10k absorb. So if the mob hit for 50k on the tank or whoever, it would only hurt the person by 40k.

[FiveDkp]

Sonohako did mention when justifying haste in 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 that mana isn't an issue and you could ignore the oom issues via spell selection. Since Mana is an issue now, it might be good to go into Mastery. (During Cata). If it isn't an issue like tuc said then Haste will be top regardless. Mastery does not beat Haste in any HPS situation.

Thanks for correcting me on the haste issue, Ishau.

Ignored that because of my silliness.

[Onorvinco]

I went mastery AND changed several gem to Int/Spi for a heroic fl run tonight, tanks were taking so much damage it was crazy, actually the whole raid was taking a lot more damage then usual (Is that JUST from us not having resist aura anymore? o.o) But anyway, I went oom on Ryolith at one point, but only on that fight. It seemed like everyone was getting just crushed in damage on that one in particular. The funniest thing? In order of difficulty I would put heroic FL right now (Easiest to hardest) at 1. Shannox 2. Ragnaros 3.Majordomo 4-6 does not really matter- 7. Ryolith.


Rag was pretty much a joke compared to any of the fights before it, with the exception of Shannox.



Edit- http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Thalast/simple Paladin I raided on :P

[Theholypally]

I tried mastery tonight (35% shield with BoM) and it was effective however, as many probably assumed, the length of time we can use holy radiance has been significantly reduced. I found myself still trying to get used to the new system, the massive shields on madness however made quite a difference. I will say though that I completely noticed the lack of a resistance aura in DS to tonight especially on heroic madness.

The reasons why I didn't choose haste to test this out is because of the severely hampered mana regen that holy paladins have (no more mp5 from BoM, no more JoTP, on top of less regen from replenishment and less regen from divine plea due to a capped mana pool). I admit it was a bit of a struggle even on nerfed madness although we were killing madness starting from blue platform last night.

Personally, I'm strongly considering tossing in a few 25 int/25 spirit gems and switching my weapon enchant to Heartsong honestly. If not now, it will deffinitley be the case when mop launches.

[Katfish]

switching my weapon enchant to Heartsong honestly. If not now, it will deffinitley be the case when mop launches.

Off topic....but Heartsong beat PT before this patch. With spirit being rated even higher now, it make Heartsong even better.


Thanks for this guide, Azshira.

[Azshira]

Off topic....but Heartsong beat PT before this patch. With spirit being rated even higher now, it make Heartsong even better.


Thanks for this guide, Azshira.

I've always used PT, I could always use extra mana even if I finished fights with lots of spare mana, it just always helped me. I think Heartsong will be vital on as an enchant in raids at the moment. Also no problem Katfish

[Tastyfish]

I just did Hds and idk, I feel like I'm sitting on too much haste at this point.
What % should we be sitting on before buffs? Is it the same?

[Azshira]

I just did Hds and idk, I feel like I'm sitting on too much haste at this point.
What % should we be sitting on before buffs? Is it the same?

Clarify your version of too much.

[Theholypally]

Anyone considered running with Shard of Woe + heroic HoU? Ive been messing around with the combo, mainly because I don't have either heroic version of windward heart or seal of the seven signs.

I've adjusted a few mouseover healing spells to include the activation of SoW, naturally I have no math to support my findings but since capped mana pools and intellect no longer affecting our regen I figured it was time to break that puppy out.

I can't even remember where I saw the mp5 numbers in regard to nerfed SoW

[Azshira]

Running with Heart of Unliving personally for the nice spirit boost