Things I have learned as a Holy Paladin

[Skaadvik]

This is basically a list of observations and anecdotes I have made in my time raid healing on the function and operation of our class. Feel free to comment/add your own/correct me.

Nightmare Tear is not worth socketing. Use a SP/Mp5 gem instead, it's far better than the measly 10 int you get from activating your meta with the tear. None of the other stats effect your throughput or regen (except spirit a TINY bit, but we all know spirit is shit for paladins).

Run seal (and glyph) of Wisdom, and judge every time you can. I average around 1400 mana back every time I judge, which is almost as much as the Sliver of Pure Ice.

There comes a point where a dip into ret is not worth it anymore. Mp5 actually gives us better mana return than crit these days, and most people are saying that we want mp5/haste plate pieces. I still have 37% holy crit without even touching ret, which is more than enough. I do miss persuit of justice, though.

I have fallen in love with the Protection dip. It doesn't show on meters and people may not even notice it, but a bubble+sac can save the entire raid. Use it on fights with lots of group damage or even just heavy tank damage like Faction Champs, Anub, or Festergut. You can also stack this with Hand of Sac on a tank to give them a HUGE mitigation boost for a time.

Speaking of boosting tank mitigation, Improved Lay on Hands is awesome. I picked it up a couple weeks ago and I use it all the time. Even when you don't need it for OH SHIT THE TANK IS AT 5% SHIT CRAP MASH BUTTONZ, it's awesome just to use preemptively because of the mitigation.

If you are running with a Protection Paladin, ask them to keep their Sacred Shield up so that you can SS the other tank and roll Flash of Light HoT on both of them. When I was using Ephemeral Snowflake, I would even ask rets to put their shield up whenever they could, just to make sure I was getting the most out of that 11 mana proc.

Divine Plea: I find that the best way to manage this ability is with a two-minute SP Cooldown trinket. I recommend the 245 ilvl badge one, because it's amazing. I use two macros that look like this:

/cast Divine Plea
/use Talisman of Resurgence
/use Sliver of Pure Ice

/cast Divine Plea
/cast Avenging Wrath

This allows you to mitigate a lot of the self-MS effect of Divine Plea. You can rotate these pretty efficiently, if you hit the first one at ~80% mana and then hit the second one a minute later, your trinkets will be back up for a third a minute after that. It's a longer wait for wings to come back up after that, but it's not so terrible to run DP without either of those up. You also may not even need the mana.

[Keraph]

I run a Divine Plea / Avenging Wrath / Divine Illumination macro (I have 2pt10). You get the full effect of Divine Plea as well as 5% MORE healing (+35% DI, +20% AW, -50% DP) while also spending 50% less mana on all heals cast during.

As far as ret vs prot goes, I'm still subbed into ret, and my holy crit is somewhere around 50%. I don't really care for mp5 pieces, though I'll happily take them when they come, but to be honest I've been deep into ICC raiding, and I have yet to have any significant mana issues. My healing has been very solid, and between Arcane Torrent and my mana macro (aptly named FFFF HEAL), I've literally had to use a mana pot maybe 5 times total, and that's only when I'm just chain-dumping Holy Lights. I also have Sliver of Pure Ice just bound to HL, and my SP macro bound to Flash, so they're both used pretty much on CD.

And yes, I use a nightmare tear :3

Edit: Agreement that Imp LoH is a great DR cooldown to use on tanks, even if they don't need the massive heal.

[Szordrin]

I also use nightmare tears although I used to try others as well. I find the extra 10 int better because of the built in talents that give you 20% or whatever more int than your base. Coupled with Int to Spellpower, it gives a nice little boost but nothing too vast.

I dont really look for MP5 pieces at all. The trinket I have from TOC takes care of that.

I -do- use Seal of Wisdom. I judge light though and steal the buff from Cerryan whenever I can.

[Skaadvik]

Intellect is good, but with talents that translates into 12 intellect from the tear, which comes out to 2.4 extra spell power. I really don't see how that could possibly be better than 12 SP and 10 Mp5. Nightmare Tear is a great choice for classes that benefit from having multiple stats increased, but I don't see the benefit for us.

[Imirak]

None of the other stats effect your throughput or regen (except spirit a TINY bit, but we all know spirit is shit for paladins).


man, when are they going to change that? You would think that, out of all the classes, that "spirit" would be especially useful to holy warriors.

[Lisbet]

man, when are they going to change that? You would think that, out of all the classes, that "spirit" would be especially useful to holy warriors.

Cataclysm. They're making mp5 and spirit one stat - spirit - and giving Paladins and shamans (which is silly because they're spirit talkers, you'd think spirit would be good!) more baseline gain from it ;p

[Tylorvias]

Gem/Enchant everything with Int and spam flash of light.

Fixed.

[Lisbet]

FL has two pallies - Siva and Jilliane.

Siva is an int whore. Jilli likes her MP5. Both are invaluable to a raid.

So really, I'd assume there's enough leway in Paladin healing mechanics that would allow for a little bit of preference - if only a little.

Its kind of like holy priest healing in that - Stack enough Int and you'll never run out of mana (I did this once, it was BEAUTIFUL). Stack enough haste and spell power and you'll aoe heal everything so powerfully and fast that the mana wont really be an issue - the rest of the raid healers will have enough to carry you through to till the end.

All in all though, a solid - healthy mix of both of these things is what ideally, a good healer makes - the proper amount of regen, mixed with healthy haste/crit and spell power ;p

[Swerto]

Intellect is good, but with talents that translates into 12 intellect from the tear, which comes out to 2.4 extra spell power. I really don't see how that could possibly be better than 12 SP and 10 Mp5. Nightmare Tear is a great choice for classes that benefit from having multiple stats increased, but I don't see the benefit for us.
Because int=crit and larger mana pool, Pretty much everything you need as a paladin.

Crit > mp5

lol mp5

[Kredorian]

I am going to contribute something not useless....


I am not sure how InT is = to crit. I think as far as gemming goes, all INT, because there is enough crit, more than enough crit on all the plate heal gear to really not have to worry about it. Skaad has 37% crit, I am pretty sure he gems for NO crit.

I dont really consider int and crit compareable stats, I think I would compare crit to haste and Mp5, idk its how my mind works, a lot of INT is on every item, I consider int and pirit primary stats and all others secondary, so for me it comes down mostly to, Int > spirit as far as primary stats, and the secondary ones.... I prefer things like haste and crit over Mp5.

AS far as GEMS... always int over any other stat because it buffs almost every other stat, IE it affects SP, Mana regen, even crit if I recall, so really, yeah, its the best and only stat to gem for, imo.

Did any of that make sens? I havent healed in a while hahaha

[Szordrin]

What Swerto meant is, you gain crit chance for the amount of int you have. For example, unbuffed my intellect contributes 12.67% of my crit. I sit around... maybe 30% unbuffed which is fine too. It could be higher and I think it is in my PVP gear but in PVE I am focusing heavily on haste. I just recently hit 20%, I'd like to be at 50% >.> Dunno how possible that is.

Large mana pool is good too. I sit around 30-32k raid buffed.

I dont go OOM very easily, only when I am casting like a MOFO cause the entire raid almost wiped. Once I remember to use Divine Illumination, I regain my mana no problem.

Of course, Divine Plea but I generally hate using it when there's alot of moles to whack.

[Kredorian]

Oh I know that, but I am kind of saying that as far as pickng and choosing stats, Int and crit don't really conflict for me, ever. I would never GEM for crit, as far as gear, I would take haste over crit but crit over Mp5. So I am pretty sure I agree with swerto.

[Lisbet]

As Szo said, in stat conversion Int = Crit. Its how it's always worked. In some classes cases int also equals spell power (mages) and it will for everyone in Cataclysm, when they remove the "Spell power" stat completely and integrate it into intelect.

Paladins, like holy priests - have talents that makes crit = mana regen. So Int = Crit = Mana = more healing.

By gemming int, you're removing the need to gem for crit, even as far as removing the need to have a lot of it on your gear. You can swap that out for Haste, and then on top of your spells hitting hard and not running out of mana, your cast times are a lot shorter, too.

[Skaadvik]

I don't have a source for this because I don't remember where I read it, but some nerd (HA!) did all the theorycraft work for lazy people like me. Crit is an inferior stat now because of the illumination nerf. Mp5 is better mana regen than crit now. Once you're at 30%+ crit, there is absolutely no need for more, it's just overkill at that point, and Mp5 will serve you better point for point. I used to look for primarily crit on my gear, but now I just look for haste. I would rather have Mp5 over crit, but I'll take whatever I can as long as it's got haste on it.

Although it's worth noting that if you're not going oom anyway, then fuck it, take the crit. All that math is only worthwhile in situations where you are going oom. The only fight I run to empty on is Festergut, and I have just enough mana to get me through the whole fight.

Szodrin, with 20% haste self buffed you can be haste capped (i.e humping the GCD) in an ideal raid environment with all available haste buffs. Also fuck you for getting solace to drop I've never even seen the damn thing.

Lisbet, Paladins also have an int>SP conversion talent, making it even more excellent of a stat for us. Do you know if Jilli runs with a SP stacking FoL build? I have read about a lot of top end guilds running two Holy Paladins in 25 mans, one that stacks int and spams HL, the other front loaded with SP doing flash spam.

Swerto, I realize what int does. My point there is that 10 intellect is a pittance and in that single case I believe it is better to use something aside from intellect because it just doesn't do as much for you. As I stated above, Mp5 is much better for us now than it used to be. Really though, the argument over that particular gem doesn't make much difference. That little bit of stat difference will never mean a raid wipe.

[Kredorian]

I'd prob use straight int except to fill out the meta... at least, thats the stupid procedure i generally use... aka I'd use the +20 int for all slots except for the slots needed to fill out the meta, and find the best socket bonus' on the gear to reconcile the loss of the straight stat.

[Skaadvik]

Yeah that's what the nightmare tear vs. SP/Mp5 gem discussion is about. You only need one or the other to activate the meta.

[Kredorian]

Oo I seee now I am an idiot lol, I was at work at not really reading it, I thought he said the stats were of equal importance by saying int = crit. Durrrrrrrrrr

[Szordrin]

I think I know where you were reading that, Skaad. I remember, when the Illumination nerf came out, that someone had posted something about mana regen MP5 vs. Crit on Elitist Jerks.


Critical Strike Rating
Critical Heals end up healing for 50% more and cost 30% less mana, and 100 Spell Crit gives +2.17% crit rate at 80. Crit isn't as usually as strong as other healing stats, since the extra healing usually is overheal and Illumination's 30% less cost doesn't give the same mana return as the same item cost as Mp5. However, sometimes Crit rating can help Glyph of HL and the FoL HoT become stronger. Note Intellect gives you 1/3 of the amount of Crit for the same item cost, while giving the before mentioned bonuses.
Assume 45 Holy Light casts per minute (spamming with the haste soft cap with full raid buffs)


1274 (Illumination uses HL base cost) * 45 * 0.3 * 0.01 (1% crit) * 5/60 = 14.287 Mp5 per %1 crit
1% crit = 45.91 crit rating
14.287/45.91 = 0.3112 Mp5 per item point

100 item points of crit = 31.12 Mp5 (when spamming HL as the best case, so in practice the returns will be less).

Mana per 5 seconds
Gives you the specified amount of mana over 5 seconds, whether or not you have been casting a spell. This stat is not as good as intellect for returning mana. 100 item points will give you 50Mp5, which is 3600 mana over 6 minutes. Even though it is not as useful as intellect or haste, at least in most situations it is better than crit rating.

Source (http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t84922-holy_paladin_compendium_3_3_a/#Stats)

So, yes MP5 can be better. For me, it's a personal preference sort of thing and since I have Solace, it's item level is somewhere around 245, I get roughly 128MP5 once the buff stacks. I think totally raid buffed I have somewhere around 450MP5 total. Granted, it's a preference for me but I certainly recognize it can be better given the situation. I use Glyph of HL primarily and only ever cast FoL to renew the HoT (if I remember).

Another thing to keep in mind is Divine Plea gives us back mana based on the total mana pool. If it's larger, more mana returns.

[Skaadvik]

]I use Glyph of HL primarily and only ever cast FoL to renew the HoT (if I remember).

Another thing to keep in mind is Divine Plea gives us back mana based on the total mana pool. If it's larger, more mana returns.

Fo sho on both of those.

And really, unless you are running out of mana or your tanks are dying, it is indeed just a matter of preference with the smaller things.

[Lailinarel]

I'm a weirdo when it comes to my holy pally, I understand the value of Int as our primary stat, mana pool not only affects our Divine Plea mana regen, but also our Seal of Wisdom Mana regen, that said, I absolutely hate having to hit Divine Plea. Pretty much in most of my paladin's gem slots I will match socket bonuses, using SP/Int in reds, straight Int in yellows and Int/Mp5 in blues. I find that it gives me higher than average spell power and mp5 while still keeping my mana pool at a decent size.

Also I like the dip into ret personally, I don't intentionally stack crit as a primary stat really at all, (though I glyph FoL and pick up all the crit talents) I could be mistaken, but I believe Heart of the Crusader can also trigger SoW mana returns, and considering my little ten man guild doesn't sport any ret pallies and rarely has anyone else to trigger a competing debuff, it doesn't hurt our raids either.