Holy Paladin FAQ – v1.0 (Pre-3.1) | WoW Edge | World of Warcraft Strategy Guides

Posted by admin on 03 27th, 2009

Holy Paladin FAQ – v1.0 (Pre-3.1)

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Credits: This FAQ was developed in response to a request from Josh of Eye For An Eye , and was created at the PlusHeal forums with input from the community there. I’m posting a modified version of it here as a number of readers don’t frequent PlusHeal (although you should! it’s great!). The format is based on Josh’s excellent Ret 3.0 FAQ . Holy FAQ – WotLK – Pre 3.1 Current as of 27 Mar, WotLK 3.0.9 build 9551. This FAQ includes details that will be not be relevant after 3.1 goes live. It will be updated ASAP. Many answers are simplistic and don’t go into details about choices in gearing, consumables, et cetera. This is intended to be an all-in-one FAQ; detailed discussions are elsewhere. ROLE 0. What do I do ? More than any other healer, paladin healers have a clearly defined role: you excel at healing a single target (or two) for massive amounts. You have no Heal-over-Time spells and no AoE heals, but you can keep a tank up through tremendous spike damage. Which is not to say you can never heal a 5-man, or raid heal successfully – you certainly can, but it’s not your speciality. TALENTS & SPELLS 1. How should I spec? For PvE: 51/0/20 or, if you can’t rely on having Kings from another paladin, 51/5/15 . Some paladins choose to take the two points out of Pursuit of Justice, and put them into the Holy tree, into Conc Aura and/or Aura Mastery for a 53/0/18 build. For PvP: 51/20/0 is the most common build for pure healing and support, although there are popular Holy/Ret hybrids for PvP as well. 2. What Seal should I use? Use Seal of Wisdom or Seal of Light, depending on which one you have Glyphed (see Q. 7 below). This is purely to activate your glyph, as you’ll rarely be swinging in melee. 3. What spells should I use? There are no hard-and-fast rules about what spells to use in what order, as healing is fundamentally a reactive activity and your choice of spells should always be based on the situation. Flash of Light is a low-throughput spell with very good mana efficiency. Use this for non-urgent raid heals, and topping off the tank if they’re not taking much damage. Holy Light is a high-throughput spell and is often used as the core heal for tank healing. Holy Shock is a talent-based spell; it heals for a little more than Flash of Light, but is instant (with a 6s CD). Use this for an urgent heal. A crit Holy Shock gives you the Infusion of Light buff, making your next Flash of Light instant or your next Holy Light very fast and is a good way to put out a lot of healing fast. Beacon of Light is excellent in situations where a couple of people are taking heavy damage, and can allow you to toss some raid heals while still healing your tank. Keep it on your tank in 5-mans; in raids put it on your heal target (if you’re going to be doing a lot of raid healing as well) or on someone else taking heavy damage. It’s costly on mana, so don’t cast it if it won’t be any use. Sacred Shield should be used on people who will be taking multiple sources of damage, as it only kicks in after the first damage is taken. It does scale with spellpower, so it can absorb a lot of damage when cast a holy paladin. Try and keep it up at all times on your heal target. 4. What Judgement should I cast? This depends on the situation: – If you are the only paladin, use whichever your raid needs. If they’re not short of mana, go with Judgement of Light as a default. – If there are multiple specs of paladin, have the ret paladins judge Light and the prot paladins judge Wisdom. (If the ret paladins want to judge Wisdom, that’s okay too.) Do not overwrite the prot paladin’s Judgement. For more information on the complexities of who judges what, see this PlusHeal thread , and my previous blog post on the subject. 5. What Blessings do I want? Wisdom > Kings > Sanctuary > Might until you start getting well-geared, then Kings > Wisdom. See this post by Gryphonheart for details. GEAR & CONSUMABLES 6. What stats do I want? There is no easy answer to this question. Gearing as a healer is a balancing act between stats that improve your throughput (Spellpower, Haste, Crit, Intellect) and stats that improve your mana longevity (Intellect, Crit, mp5). Intellect is the primary stat for a paladin healer because it affects your mana longevity (via mana pool, mana return effects like Divine Plea, Replenishment and Mana Tide Totem, and increasing your crit chance) and it affects your throughput (via Holy Guidance and increasing your crit chance). However, stacking Intellect early in the gearing process means you’ll never run out of mana, but your heals won’t be big enough to keep your tank alive. As a general rule, go with the following order of priority on stats: 1. Intellect 2. Spellpower (which should be #1 on this list until you reach about 1700-1800; after that, focus on Intellect and the Spellpower will come via upgrades anyway) 3. Crit 4. Haste (but don’t go over about 500; much more than that is wasted due to the extra haste from your Judgements ) 5. mp5 (far less important than the first four, but not useless) 6. Stamina Bear in mind that unlike priests or druids, you will rarely get any benefit from Spirit. Don’t throw gear away just because it has Spirit, but ignore it completely when assessing an item’s worth. 7. What glyphs should I use? Major: Glyph of Holy Light Glyph of Seal of Wisdom or Glyph of Seal of Light Glyph of Flash of Light or Glyph of Divinity Minor: none of these are essential; feel free to change them. Glyph of Lay on Hands (synergises well with Glyph of Divinity) Glyph of Blessing of Kings (if you have Kings; handy for mid-fight rebuffs) Glyph of Sense Undead (if you fight Undead much, e.g. Naxxramas) 8. What enchants should I use? See this post for a full run-down. In brief: Helm : Arcanum of Burning Mysteries , Revered with Kirin Tor Shoulders : Greater Inscription of the Storm , Exalted with Sons of Hodir, or

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