Healing Paladin 1.12 (Classic)

[Valks 2,373]

This thread is for comments and feedback concerning our guide to healing as a Paladin in WoW Classic.

[Niche 0]

Lets see. Where to begin. Lets go backwards!

Pre-raid BiS page:

Missing Rosewine Circle ring, clearly better than rumination

Belt of the Ordained - not in game until 1.4 https://itemization.info/item/18702

Detention Strap should be removed.

BiS belts are Crystallized Girdle, Ban'thok Sash, or Sash of Mercy (boe epic world drop)

Shroud of the Nathrezim - not in game until 1.4 https://itemization.info/item/18720

Magister's Mantle should be removed.

BiS shoulders are Living Shoulders or Royal Cap Spaulders (or Dawnbringer Shoulders once an armorsmith gets the drop from a raid)

Alanna's Embrace should be removed. I guess it is here because it's purple?

Magister's Crown should be removed.

Helm alternative should be Cassandra's Grace or Tribal War Feathers.

Gizlok's Hypertech Buckler should be added as offhand alternative. Some pallies just have to have a shield.

Enchants/Consumables page:

Missing ZG enchant for helm/legs as well as shoulders. Missing Naxx shoulder enchant. Missing Lights Hope Chapel Frost and Shadow helm/legs enchants. Missing bracers healing enchant and bracers mp5 enchant. Missing gloves healing enchant. Missing weapon healing enchant. Missing shield stamina enchant. I realize you may intend this for classic launch, but you include mageblood elixir and brilliant mana oil lower on this page, which are from Zul'gurub, so you need to be consistent. Maybe a marker for patch inclusion after the item.

World buffs:

Warchief's Blessing is Horde only. Paladins can only get this via mind control from a horde priest during a buff event. Unlikely, especially on pvp servers where you can't have characters on both factions. There is no alliance version of this buff in Stormwind. There is no Warchief of the Alliance.

Missing Darkmoon faire 10% intellect. Missing Spirit of Zandalar. Missing Dire Maul tribute buffs.

Consumables:

Missing Greater Mana Potion - extremely cheap, easy to pop without regrets. Sometimes it's all you need.

Incorrect information - Demonic Rune - best places to farm are satyr mobs in Azshara and Felwood. The blasted lands mobs might have higher drop rate, but they are much more annoying to kill since they are elite, requiring significant help to kill. These are guard mobs for a raid world boss.

Insufficient information - Demonic rune/dark rune/healthstone/nightdragon's breath/whipper root tuber are all on the same cooldown and should be listed as such. They are not on the potion cooldown.

Incorrect information - Stratholme Holy Water and Crystal Charge are both ground targeted aoe items just like dynamite and grenades. They do not do damage 'around you'.

Incorrect information - Goblin Sapper Charge - does not create a mine. Using the charge is the trigger to detonate immediately.

Possibly incorrect item inclusions - Blasted lands repeatable quest buffs may not stack with raid buffs. This will need testing to confirm.
 

Stat Priority page:

"Down-ranking healing spells is an important part of healing, and healing power increases the power of any heal, regardless of rank, by the same flat amount."

This is incorrect. Spells learned below level 20 incur a penalty to coefficients. Holy Light rank 1, 2 and 3 are learned below level 20. This statement is also misleading in that it indicates all spells gain the same healing power. The coefficient is based on cast time such as flash of light at 1.5/3.5 = .428 or holy light is 2.5/3.5 = .714 (except on ranks 1-3).

It is potentially misleading to list crit above mp5. While not entirely wrong, crit is very expensive from an item budget perspective and can lead new players to make poor decisions (like Inventor's Focal Sword). Mp5 should be listed above crit to guide players to better loot decisions. Mixing crit into your gear at an early level should only be done knowing exactly what you are doing, and still it is not advised.

Rotation, Cooldown page:

Rotation section:

" If the person is low during a dangerous portion of a fight you will probably want to use a Rank 9 Holy Light to get them topped with one heal, whereas if they are moderately low in a low damage part of the fight you will want to use your most efficient heal, which will be Rank 4 Flash of Light."

Relying just on rank numbers is not a good path to learning how to play a healer. The player needs to learn how much these ranks heal for. They also need to learn how much health different classes tend to have so they can judge the amount by how much is missing from their bar, or have the missing health listed on each person's frame. A tank that's at 70% health needs a much larger heal than a mage at 70% health. A mage at 50% will probably be nearly topped off with a rank 6 flash of light, but a tank at 50% needs an upper rank holy light to do the same job. However, there are usually multiple healers on tanks, so a large heal may not be necessary.

When I am teaching a new player how to setup their spells to heal, I tell them to have a fast heal for 500, max rank fast heal, slow heal for 1000, slow heal for 2000 and a max rank slow heal. For a pre-raid paladin this approximately equates to rank 4 flash, rank 6 flash, rank 4 light, rank 7 light, rank 9 light. As you gain gear, your teammates will gain health, so these ranks should continue to be effective.

Also, rank 4 Flash of Light is not a paladin's most efficient heal. That is rank 1 flash of light, of course (with blessing of light). Rank 4 flash is also not the best mix of healing per second and efficiency. That belongs to Holy Light rank 4, assuming moderate healing gear.

Go to this link for a simulator showing the effect of healing power, talents, and buffs for different ranks of Holy Light and Flash of Light: https://tegas.github.io/legacy-sim/#/spell

With the default stats of 500 healing and 15% crit, healing light, illumination, and blessing of light enabled, you can see that Flash of Light rank 4 is 411 heal per second at 8.07 heal per mana. Holy Light rank 4 is 486 hps at 7.53 hpm. This is an increase of 18.2% hps at the cost of only 7% efficiency.

With that said, Holy Light is not as useful in early raids since people have lower health totals. Raid aoe damage patterns are usually in the sub-1000 range, and holy light takes too long to cast for raid healing. Holy light is generally saved for tank healing in early raids, but come Naxxramas, even mages and priests will have 5000 hp and holy light will definitely be useful, and preferred in many cases. Flash of light 4 and 6 are the best raid heals until that point.

A point about efficiency - In pre-raid BiS, a paladin with raid buffs and using major mana potion and demonic rune on cooldown can cast flash of light rank 4 for approximately 8 minutes, rank 5 for approximately 4 minutes, and rank 6 for approximately 2 minutes without cancelling a cast. This is a stark showcase of efficiency and how much paladins rely on mana pots for their longevity. Both of these cooldowns combine to be worth 25 mp5, typically as much as a pre-raid paladin has on gear, perhaps more.

The seals section is not well worded and perhaps is influenced by the author's play on later versions of WoW. It is uncommon to have a seal active as a holy paladin. You are rarely in melee range to be able to attack the boss either due to mechanics such as Heigan's mana burn, or Ragnaros' knockback cast on mana users, being spread out, or simply stopping just within healing range to begin casting heals as soon as possible. You are also almost always chain casting heals, so meleeing the boss for a seal/judgement of wisdom proc is unrealistic.

Generally it is decided at the start of the raid (or by your paladin's spec choices) who will be judging a seal. Wisdom is typically useful on all bosses. Light is occasionally useful, and is the first of the two to go when debuff limits start getting tight, with some exceptions (Thaddius/Sapphiron/Loatheb/etc). Typically only those two paladins need to bother casting seals at all.

This line of thought extends into the 5 second rule section, and should be removed.

Builds and Talents page:

The default build should be a build that heals well and helps the paladin do everything they need to in the game. The default build shown is a pure healbot. This is fine for raids, but doesn't help when grinding demonic runes, for example. 

The default build should be 30/21 (https://classicdb.ch/?talent#sVeubxoxVGxcMz) getting holy power and blessing of sanctuary. Improved wisdom and might should be an optional spec with at least 1-2 paladins in the guild having it, so it is present at raids. Having all paladins with it is a mistake and waste of talent points/opportunity. Holy Shock is a pretty bad spell and does not gain anything from Blessing of Light, making it even worse. I consider it optional, and only consider using it for dps while grinding. The 30/21 spec boosts SoR damage for grinding, maintains consecration for AOE farming (dire maul, WPL cauldrons) or even dungeon tanking. It gains higher block chance (via Redoubt), higher block value and armor in the prot tree causing you to take less damage while grinding or tanking, and a shorter cooldown on stun. Those points can be moved for improved righteous fury to be a proper dungeon tank, or a point can be placed in kings, if your guild needs the flexibility. This default build typically buffs Salvation, Light, Sanctuary, or Kings, leaving the specialized pally to buff might and wisdom.

So this default build is better at soloing, better at tanking, better at dps, has access to kings and sanctuary, and is still just as powerful a healer as the default build listed in your guide.

Improved concentration aura is pretty niche usage. There's no reason to have a paladin spec for this specifically, but it is a valid option, I suppose.

A note about Lasting Judgement - just like improved wisdom and might, this should only be taken by the paladins that will regularly be your light and wisdom judgers. It is not terrible to have generally, but you could have higher SoR damage or fear resistance instead, or spec deeper in the protection tree for more durability/utility.

Spell Summary page:

Incorrect spell listing - Blessing of Sacrifice - should be listed with other blessings, not with cooldowns. There is no cooldown on this spell, it merely is a shorter duration than the other blessings. You can maintain 100% uptime should you choose to refresh it every 30 seconds.

Misleading description - Purify/Cleanse - include that this target must be a friendly one, otherwise one might think you could cleanse an enemy.

Introduction page:

I would add lack of healing over time to the list of weaknesses, as well as limited healing weapon options (essentially mace only).

Best race for PVE should be either. Stoneform usefulness in raids is very rare, and all of those situations (save Huhuran enrage) can be dealt with by cleansing or using a jungle remedy.

--

I hope you take this as constructive criticism as that is my intent.

[Impakt 25]

HI Niche,

Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate the thought and effort put into your post. I'm currently working on some guides that need to get out before Classic, so while I won't be able to make many changes immediately, they will get done before launch.

To go over some of your feedback,

1. You are correct, some later items definitely slipped into the pre-raid BiS list. These will be fixed.

2. I'll need to spend some time going over a few of the gear changes that you suggested, but I'm sure at least some of them will be added in. 

3. You are also correct here, some ZG potions/items slipped in, which is my mistake. These will be fixed. This guide is meant to be phase 1 specific, so I will be adding in any items from later raids/phases at a later time before they are released.

4. I'll try to make a better point about learning how much each rank heals for. That is what I was going for, but I agree the point did not come across as well as it should have.

5. I believe I do specify that you need to be in melee range to make use of your seals, but I'll take another look at emphasizing it more.

6. For a hybrid build, I agree that your talent build would be better if the goal was to be decent at doing other roles. I'll look into adding it, but I don't agree that it would be labeled as a default build. Sanctuary only needs to be taken by 1 holy paladin in the raid, and in terms of what you would normally buff your group with, Might and Wisdom are simply more important and more common. It makes more sense to explain that paladins need to take the improved versions/buffs for whatever they're in charge of, which I think I explain pretty well in the talent section.

7. I'll look into the crit v mp5 more. What you're saying makes sense, but I want to read more on it before committing to changing anything.

 

Thanks again for the thorough post and feedback, let me know if you have anything else you want to add. You can find my discord in the icy-veins discord as well (Impakt) if you would like to dm me and discuss anything further.

[Niche 0]

Thanks for taking my feedback constructively.

RE: 5 - My main issue with seals is that you just aren't melee range very often. My guild has 2 paladins that volunteered to add Lasting Judgement to their 30/21 builds so they will be the main and backup JoL for fights that warrant it, and our experimental spelladin will be maintaining JoW on everything he attacks. I guess my 'complaint' with how your seals section is written is that it makes it seem like all paladins should have a seal up at all times, trying to melee for mana. Paladins are already plenty efficient enough without needing SoW/JoW procs. Casting heals interrupts your melee swing timer, and being in melee range is often quite dangerous with boss AoE and cleaves.
 

RE: 6 - I should explain this better I suppose. 30/21 gives you all the healing talents, but also greatly reduces your damage taken when using a shield while grinding, making AOE farming and simple 1v1 mob killing much easier and with zero downtime in the latter case. It can stand in as a tank for 5 mans if needed, but is not as strong as a dedicated prot. Whether you are farming demonic runes or farming lashers in DM East or skeletons at WPL cauldrons, the consumable or gold collection will be at a much higher rate than as a pure healbot spec. You'll be able to participate in more varied activities and have more options so you don't get bored as easily.

Sanctuary is not necessarily taken for raiding. It is primarily for personal use outside of raid. As you say only 1 paladin needs it in a raid, and it is the lowest priority blessing, meaning it requires 5 paladins in the raid before it is even considered. While single target grinding, aoe farming, and dungeon tanking, you can use Sanctuary for improved dps and threat.

Improved Wisdom and Might are primarily raid buffs. In a 5 man, you'd be using light on the tank, salvation on the dps, only buffing yourself with wisdom. The slight bump in personal mp5 is nice, but the trade off in solo ability makes it unattractive. Improved might doesn't help a spell damage based melee/tank. Improved wisdom won't make any difference in solo grinding (never oom), and for high level aoe farming and tanking, mana is typically not a concern due to drinking after every pull anyway.

 

Our guild has 6 paladins and we have organized blessings this way -

1 paladin with your default spec with imp wisdom and might. He will be our primary wisdom/might buffer. He wanted to be this spec.

1 paladin (me) with 30/21 with imp wisdom. In the event our first paladin is absent, I will buff wisdom and salv might targets. Otherwise buffing salv on all. I want good single target farming with potential for aoe farm.

1 paladin doing spelladin with imp might. In the event our first paladin is absent, he will buff might and salv wisdom targets. Otherwise only buffs might on druids and paladins to catch feral and himself as ret.

1 paladin with 30/21 buffing Light, Sanc or Kings. He wants to tank 5 mans.

2 paladins with 30/21 with Lasting Judgement buffing Light, Sanc or Kings. They want to aoe farm.

This way we have redundancy on improved wisdom and might, and still have all 5 buffs if one paladin is missing or sitting, or cut Sanc (other than tanks) if only 4 paladins are present.

 

So you can see, in any organized guild, having 1 imp wisdom/might is expected. Having a second for backup is OK, but other arrangements can work too. Having more than 2 is just useless. You limit your other paladins' ability to farm gold/consumables and limit their playstyle options leading to boredom, raid logging and not having consumables.

This is why I consider 30/21 the default spec and imp wis/might an optional spec and should only be taken if your guild needs you to.

Edited August 18, 2019 by Niche

[Ulath 0]

Also, on the Gear section, While the 2 head pieces are good, why not have Green Lens of Healing (with 13 Stam and +53 to Healing) it is quite good... 

[Impakt 25]

On 9/25/2019 at 12:45 PM, Ulath said:

Also, on the Gear section, While the 2 head pieces are good, why not have Green Lens of Healing (with 13 Stam and +53 to Healing) it is quite good... 

You're right, that would be a solid addition. It doesn't even have to be just Green Lens though, and item with +healing on it above with up to +55 would be great.

[Guest Adamina]

Magma Tempered Boots, Whipvine Cord, Royal Seal of Eldre'Thalas, Burst of Knowledge, Cloak of the Cosmos, Shroud of the Nathrezim, Gallant's Wristguards, Don Mauricio's Band of Domination and Red Dragonscale Breastplate are all missing from various bis and pre-raid bis lists

[Guest Diff]

I believe Zulian Headdress from ZG should be superior to Insightful Head from DM.

[Guest Luroen]

Hi,

 

I love your guide. however on the slider bar for talents it doesn't build with level it shows all at one time and doesn't give guidance on what to talent into per level and what talents to choose. Can you please update this.

Best regards,

 

[Guest Ober of Grobbulus]

Hey, it looks like some of the BiS head slot for Holy Pal got messed up. I'm seeing Crystal Adorned Crown's source as "several bosses in Zul'Gurub." Looks like the source entries got mixed up a bit. That just needs a quick fix.

Cheers, thanks for guide. 

[Guest Aladerum]

2 Questions:

1. Why did you choose T3 gloves over T3 legs for the 6th set piece? 

2. Why do you have Scrolls of Blinding Light listed as BiS instead of Eye of the Dead?

Thanks!

[Impakt 25]

On 1/15/2021 at 4:46 AM, Guest Aladerum said:

2 Questions:

1. Why did you choose T3 gloves over T3 legs for the 6th set piece? 

2. Why do you have Scrolls of Blinding Light listed as BiS instead of Eye of the Dead?

Thanks!

1. Empowered leggings are a better off-piece compared to what you would use for gloves. Significantly more spellpower, same crit, slightly less int and no mp5.

2. Eye of the dead is very strong trinket, and I didn't realize I forgot to add it into the alternate gear section. In general though, the 33% cast speed for 20 seconds is going to be far more valuable of a cooldown than Eye of the dead. I prefer to have the cooldown option available, but if you would rather go for the flat spellpower and weaker cooldown that's definitely a viable choice.

[Guest Aladerum]

8 hours ago, Impakt said:

1. Empowered leggings are a better off-piece compared to what you would use for gloves. Significantly more spellpower, same crit, slightly less int and no mp5.

2. Eye of the dead is very strong trinket, and I didn't realize I forgot to add it into the alternate gear section. In general though, the 33% cast speed for 20 seconds is going to be far more valuable of a cooldown than Eye of the dead. I prefer to have the cooldown option available, but if you would rather go for the flat spellpower and weaker cooldown that's definitely a viable choice.

I wouldn't say slightly less int; 19 int is a decent chunk! 8 mp5 is relatively big as well considering it's from one item. If my logic/math is correct, the difference between choosing T3 hands or legs comes down to which of these two options you value most: 9 healing power or 4 mp5 + 9 int. If you choose 9 healing power, then you'll want to go with T3 hands. If you choose 4 mp5 + 9 int, you'll want to go with T3 legs. The Vault of the Silverhands "simulator" has Empowered Leggings and T3 legs as side-grades whereas Peacekeeper Gauntlets is slightly better than T3 hands. T3 legs also has the added benefit of considerably more survivability (though I know healers generally don't worry/care much about this). Not a huge deal either way, but was just curious about your value system. I'd say T3 bracers and Bracelets of Royal Redemption have similar (even near exact) tradeoffs as T3 hands and Peacekeeper. 

I do think Scrolls of Blinding Light is a very situational trinket (such as for an enrage phase like Patchwerk or Maexxna or for Holy Light spam on Vael). Otherwise most boss fights don't have the rapid incoming damage needed to merit the reduced cast time (so a lot of your casts will probably end up being overheals, unless perhaps you are casting Holy Light which would be very mana exhaustive). Over 20 seconds, you can cast 8 Holy Lights. With this trinket, you'd be able to cast 12 Holy Lights in 20 seconds. We should all agree that we would never need to cast this many Holy Lights. So it's my assumption this trinket would primarily be used to mostly or entirely cast Flash of Light for raid heals. During 20 seconds, you can cast about 13 Flash of Lights. With this trinket, you'd be able to cast about 17 Flash of Lights in 20 seconds. I guess I'm just wondering when you would typically use this, which heal you would be casting, and who you would be healing. I would say the Saph fight has the most raid-wide damage, but I would still opt for Eye of the Dead for the constant and guaranteed healing output. Additionally, Scrolls of Blinding Light has a whopping 5 min CD whereas Eye of the Dead is a mere 2 mins! You better choose carefully when you use Scrolls of Blinding Light as you almost assuredly won't get another use out of it! Lastly, 450 healing power for your next 5 heals is pretty huge! Especially when it can be used twice in some fights.

I will end with one more question though: Is the T3 6-set bonus even worth it? Would it not be better to retain more healing power by just going with 4 pieces (or maybe 5 if you like the ring)? Afterall, mp5 isn't huge for pallies (especially when fights get shorter and shorter) and int only marginally increases crit chance and expands our mana pool further than we really need. The 6-set bonus proc rate is somewhat low (I believe around 10%), the proc takes up a buff slot, it only lasts for 8 seconds, and the healer mp5 buff is very underwhelming. I could see it being very good on fights where pallies are spam healing warrior tanks. 700 armor is nothing to scoff at. It's just hard to quantify the utility of the 6-set bonus and whether or not taking a healing power hit is worth it.