[Archived] Holy Paladin 5.4

[Guest outlaw1712]

The Eternal Flame HoT ticks do no longer refresh the shields.

[Vlad 411]

Thanks! Updating the guide as we speak.

[Guest Stonedhealer]

not sure if it has been mentioned but Ethernal Flame tick(HoT) does not add or refresh the illumination shield as of 5.4, might want to change that in the rotation guide

[Guest Rades]

You may wish to remove the macro for canceling Divine Plea since it no longer reduces your healing, and therefore there is no point in canceling it early (and is actually quite bad to do so)

[Guest AV]

Just a note, even though the glyph of divine plea reduces the duration and mana gain by 50%, it still has to give 12% back.  

This glyph is only a detriment if you gain 25%+ of your mana back from spirit, which I don't think is easily attainable.

 

Taking the glyph will always be an increase in mana.  Of course, don't take my word, verify.

[Guest Misskatonic]

Note that you can choose to spend your Holy Power on  Eternal Flame instead of  Word of Glory, if you prefer. This will provide your Beacon of Light target with a nice stream of healing.

I'm a little confused about that part fro 1.2 Tank Healing (in Healing Rotation and Abilities) since the section says that for tank healing you should take the Sacred Shield talent. Eternal Flame replaces Word of Glory, so how could you choose to spend Holy Power on Eternal Flame when you wouldn't have that talent while also having Sacred Shield?

[Kupo 0]

Hey the minor glyph section in most classes gets kinda washed over and I understand why but Glyph of the Falling Avenger should be included for pallies. Not only have I found it useful while out soloing (That one chest puzzle on the isle of time, with all those ropes? I just ran across the cloak bridge and slow falled down to it instead of spending time trying to jump exactly in the right places.) and then on Galakras I used it to get down off a tower - the first time, knowing I could heal on my way down and use the benefits and that it would be back up for when Galakras would be down. Maybe it's not a game changer but its a fun and useful little glyph. Worth mentioning at least.

[Guest Atia]

Atismind aint really raiding and havent for 5.4 or atleast not on the pala you link to. You should either remove and find a new to review, or update link to his real pala

[Lovestorybro 4]

On Misskatonic's question about eternal flame/sacred shield - you are correct that you can't have both.  You would either pick to have sacred shield and use that on tanks/others or choose eternal flame and put that on as many people as possible so that your beacon target (tank) would receive heals from that.  That probably should not have been included in that part of the guide or they should have worded it differently.

 

On Kupo's suggestion for including glyph of falling avenger - great idea to mention this.  I would not recommend using a healing cooldown just to reduce fall damage, though, unless it's going to kill you.  It can work great on fights like Galakras if you pop your cd shortly before hitting the ground and then start healing your ground team with the cd popped.  You also have to be careful about using this glyph on fights where you will get knocked up into the air.  If you get knocked up into the air while this is happening, you can find yourself essentially stuck in the air, falling slowly when you need to be on the ground healing or moving to a new location.  You would not want to have to cancel your buff in order to move around properly.

 

Something else worth mentioning is Hand of Freedom.  I rarely use this for its intended purpose, but have found that it is great for clearing other hands off your targets.  For example, you will probably find yourself needing to put hand of protection on your tanks or other raid member from time to time to remove harmful debuffs.  Since the debuff is removed immediately, but hand of protection continues on your target for the full duration, they will either need to remove it by right clicking or using a cancel aura macro so they can control their character normally.  You can use a combination of Hand of Protection immediately followed by Hand of Freedom to remove the harmful debuffs and then clear hand of protection off of them by replacing it with freedom because you can only have 1 hand on each target at a time.  Then you don't have to worry about your tank not being able to taunt and whatnot and you can do it all yourself very quickly.  You can also use it in the same way to 'erase' hand of salv if you put it on the wrong target, etc.

[Guest Im a Dolphin]

Did you not realize that both of your reviewers no longer raid? Your guide isn't at all optimized for 5.4, especially regarding gems. You should find new reviewers =/

[Guest Guest]

Thanks a lot for this guide. I just got back into MoP from missing Cata, and I normally played a tankadin. My current guild has more than enough tanks though, and they asked if I could go holy for now so this site has been a good start.

 

Took awhile though for me  to adjust, tried out the suggested gearing and priorities but after trying LFRs for days I always felt underwhelmed with how low my healing output was (considering my gear). After more digging (for starters going with Selfless Healer over Eternal Flame) finally found my pace and have seen better results.

[Guest dvtz]

Thank you very much for this guide.

 

I'm getting the following error while trying to import the WeakAuras cooldown bar and the hand bar:

 

Error deserializing ...akAuras\libs\AceSerializer-3.0\AceSerializer-3.0.lua:223: Invalid AceSerializer table format (no table end marker).

 

Am I the only one getting that error?

[Moinphyst 0]

3) Could you link some of these sources? Personally, I don't really see what would make Mastery more valuable than Haste at the moment, mana pool size being fixed or not. But of course, I'm always willing to change my mind

 

On the note of stat priority, especially concerning haste, I would like to point out that the 25.03% haste cap is only applicable if you're using EF. Additionally, when I look at Shuttle-Illidan's gear, he doesn't even have this haste cap in his full heroic BiS gear - falling short at a 23.81% when buffed. He is, however, using SH instead of EF. Nothing in the guide talks about ignoring the haste cap if not using EF. Also, if you're using EF and SoE, you might as well go to 25.08% spirit to get the 3rd tick on SoE.

 

 

Furthermore, I have some disagreements about the gemming section. Shuttle, along with almost all of the ranking paladins I've taken the time to look at on World of Logs gem for mastery. Some go intellect. Getting the LMG greatly decreases the need for spirit. This gives player the option to use mastery, mastery/int, and mastery/spirit gems rather than gemming for spirit. Also, it seems really strange that you would recommend putting a spirit/int gem into a prismatic socket when the stat priority says int > spirit. In my opinion, the Legendary Meta Gem is a huge game changer and greatly changes the way you reforge and gem gear. You almost need a separate section for this. For instances, I'm comfortable around 14k spirit with my LMG, some people might want more or less depending on healing style and awareness of raiders they're healing.

 

As for actual play style or "rotation" as a holy paladin, your guild suggests that you only cast EF when you have 3 holy power. Though this may be the superior strategy when healing without Divine Purpose, I find it very handy to be able to "fish for procs" with a  single holy power EF. Essentially, Paladins with Divine Purpose and Eternal Flame attempt to Blanket the raid with EF all of the time so the HoT portion of the heal funnels to your beaconed target. Holy paladin talents can have a great affect on the optimal way to play the class and I'm not convinced the guide does the best it can do in explaining some of the nuances of the talents.

 

These are my thoughts about stat-priority with gemming and reforging and general play style. Thanks for taking the time to read and think about them! Also, Vlad... I'd love a link to your holy paladin on armory.

[Fouton 266]

You raise some very valid concerns, and I will direct this to the admins to have a world-class holy paladin share their thoughts. It is merely my offspec, so I don't want to try to field this information without the help of, say Shuttle, for example.

 

Thanks for the input :)

[Shuttle 3]

 

On the note of stat priority, especially concerning haste, I would like to point out that the 25.03% haste cap is only applicable if you're using EF. Additionally, when I look at Shuttle-Illidan's gear, he doesn't even have this haste cap in his full heroic BiS gear - falling short at a 23.81% when buffed. He is, however, using SH instead of EF. Nothing in the guide talks about ignoring the haste cap if not using EF. Also, if you're using EF and SoE, you might as well go to 25.08% spirit to get the 3rd tick on SoE.

 

 

The haste breakpoints are only for Sacred Shield & Eternal Flame. We don't have any hastebreak points listed for Selfless Healer.  The haste you see on my armory, is to reduce CD's with Sanctity of Battle.

 

 

Furthermore, I have some disagreements about the gemming section. Shuttle, along with almost all of the ranking paladins I've taken the time to look at on World of Logs gem for mastery. Some go intellect. Getting the LMG greatly decreases the need for spirit. This gives player the option to use mastery, mastery/int, and mastery/spirit gems rather than gemming for spirit. Also, it seems really strange that you would recommend putting a spirit/int gem into a prismatic socket when the stat priority says int > spirit. In my opinion, the Legendary Meta Gem is a huge game changer and greatly changes the way you reforge and gem gear. You almost need a separate section for this. For instances, I'm comfortable around 14k spirit with my LMG, some people might want more or less depending on healing style and awareness of raiders they're healing.

 

I'm not quite sure where you're getting at with spirit gems; In Siege of Orgrimmar blue sockets do not exist with the exception of the ring off Thok. We left the blue gems (int/spirit) on there so players with lesser gear i.e no legendary meta gems knew to gem for more mana regen. The prismatic socket is simply an oversight, thanks for pointing it out. I'll be sure to send in a revised  ASAP.

 

 

As for actual play style or "rotation" as a holy paladin, your guild suggests that you only cast EF when you have 3 holy power. Though this may be the superior strategy when healing without Divine Purpose, I find it very handy to be able to "fish for procs" with a  single holy power EF. Essentially, Paladins with Divine Purpose and Eternal Flame attempt to Blanket the raid with EF all of the time so the HoT portion of the heal funnels to your beaconed target. Holy paladin talents can have a great affect on the optimal way to play the class and I'm not convinced the guide does the best it can do in explaining some of the nuances of the talents.

 

I decided to not include Divine Purpose in most of the guide, as Divine Purpose doesn't have a place in raiding. It's simply a subpar talent in comparison to Holy Avenger. I'm could we could revisit Divine Purpose and add it in for the extremely small minority. Either way, fishing for a DP Proc using 1 holy power is quite bad, as each holy point spent provides you with 8.3% chance to proc.

 

1 Charge - 8% chance.

2 Charges - 16% chance.

3 Charges - 25% chance.

 

These are my thoughts about stat-priority with gemming and reforging and general play style. Thanks for taking the time to read and think about them! Also, Vlad... I'd love a link to your holy paladin on armory.

 

 

Thank you for the response! I'll be sure to take another glance at the guide and be sure to send in necessary updates to Vlad. (Responses bolded in the quote)

 

 

Thank you very much for this guide.

 

I'm getting the following error while trying to import the WeakAuras cooldown bar and the hand bar:

 

Error deserializing ...akAuras\libs\AceSerializer-3.0\AceSerializer-3.0.lua:223: Invalid AceSerializer table format (no table end marker).

 

Am I the only one getting that error?

 

Hi,

 

Sorry about that. I'll update all of the weakaura strings and have them updated asap.

Edited March 29, 2014 by Shuttle

[Celdaric 0]

A glorious hello fellow paladins.

I was thinking of adding a thought to the use of Eternal Flame in current tier.
I do not quite agree with the guide saying that ones goal is still to try to blanket the raid with Eternal Flame (in every encounter). Both because the healing-over-time no longer proc the mastery, but also because I feel it is just massive over-healing and the never ending building and spending of Holy Power to blanket the raid will just drain ones mana, unless insane mana regen.
The way I play it, I use only Eternal Flame on the tank that is tanking the boss for the moment, on both tanks if there is 2 bosses or the other one tanking mobs or something, also on ocassion I use it on myself, since that makes it 50 % stronger = more healing to the Beacon-target.
Also to note, on encounters where players get affected by DoTs that lasts long enough I try to get Eternal Flame on them. In SoO there are many fights that have long lasting DoTs, Some examples:
Fallen Protectors - Garrote
Iron Juggernaut - Laser Burn
Nazgrim - Bonecracker
In cases where there is no damage going out other than to the tank, I just try to keep Flame on tank that currently tanks and myself. and other than that I have Holy Power stocked up for Light of Dawn when raid-damage comes out. 

Someone must have mentioned this, but I still thought it was usefull enough to make a post about, and maybe it is deemed worthy to change the guide for Holy paladin somewhat.
And in before someone says that blanketing with Eternal Flame adds steady stream of healing to the tank, that may be true, but in most cases you have other healers that are hopefully not sleeping 

Edited May 27, 2014 by Celdaric

[Geoda 253]

Thanks for the post Celdaric. I believe a topic like this was mentioned a few months ago. Ever since EF no longer refreshes our Mastery, many Paladins have ventured off into the Selfless Healer tier. I believe your style of play is exactly how EF should be done though when used. Stack a 3 Holy Power EF on tank, use any EF on players with DoT and then use on yourself. The rest of the HP should go towards a WoG or LoD.

 

My issue is that I believe Selfless Healer trumps EF now. Back when we could blanket the raid and refresh Mastery, yes, EF was superior. But now with the amount of bubbles and overhealing that already goes out, Mastery is taking the lead as our top heal. That said, the only way to build Illuminated Healing (our Mastery) is to cast direct Single Target or AoE heals. Selfless Healer enables us to do this with ease. 

[Guest Harahhwass-Ghostland]

I just read that in your guide under raid damage it says that you can replace crusader strike with holy radiance if the raid damage is truly heave but you never previously mention using crusader strike. I'm just curious as to when and if you should use crusader strike.

[Vlad 411]

I just read that in your guide under raid damage it says that you can replace crusader strike with holy radiance if the raid damage is truly heave but you never previously mention using crusader strike. I'm just curious as to when and if you should use crusader strike.

Normally, if you are in melee range of the boss (which you should try to be), and the damage is not too heavy, you can use Crusader Strike to generate Holy Power. It is this practice that should be replaced by Holy Radiance usage in situations of heavy raid damage.