[Guide] Holy Paladin 5.4 PvE
I’m Kemii, been playing a Holy Paladin since Cata 4.0.6 through to WOD 6.2. It's been my go to healer for as long as I've played WoW. Back on retail MOP I found that Holy Paladins were an amazing class in PvE with great AOE healing and brilliant Tank sustain. I never core raided HC progression on my Paladin, however I would heal alt runs, other guild would hire me to come heal their normal progression and even in LFR gear I healed the **** out of Garrosh 10N with an equally crappy geared disc priest. I pride myself on learning every aspect of a class I play, even at an alt level, min maxxing, theorycrafting. it’s what I love about this game.
Armories:
Retail MOP - Toshika of Frostmane EU
Retail WOD - Toshika of Tarren Mill EU
Warmane MOP - Angel of Frostwolf
Why Holy Paladin?
Holy Paladin provides a lot of active AOE healing, AOE burst healing, Tank healing and burst Tank Healing. It's a really strong all around healer.
Show some love to your Holy Paladins, they will save your *** in a tight situation.
Racial Choice
Alliance
Human: 4% Spirit increase, this makes Human the strongest PvE healer of every race. it allows you that little bit more room within your gear and reforging to get either another haste cap, more mastery or gem them.
Horde
Blood Elf: Really, the horde racials are pretty meh, Blood Elf however gives you Arcane Torrent which gives you a little mana back on use with a 2min CD isn’t exactly bad, it’s a ree Holy Radiance cast.
http://i.imgur.com/QqYw3Y8.png
Above if your general “cookie cutter” spec, these are also optimal for your 10 and 25M raid healing, as well as tank healing. We can go into much more detail below.
Bolded Choices are your optimal talents, which give you the best at what you need.
Tier 1 - Movement
Speed of Light - This is an on use movement speed which has a 70% increase for 8 seconds, this allows you to avoid almost all of your movement involving raid mechanics, allows you to position yourself if you have say a bomb on you away from the raid group, to kite lazers or to run into range of your tank should you have moved out too far from them.
Long Arm of the Law - Not as optimal since this requires you to use Judgement, and its on a much short DC and duration, there maybe fights which require small but frequent movement for which you are in range to use judgement.
Pursuit of Justice - Increases movement speed depending on how much Holy Power you have. Unfortunately this is not a good talent to choose since you will not be pooling up Holy Power, you should be spending it straight away and as such would never make use of this talent.
Tier 2 - Crowd Control
Fist of Justice - Probably the best talent to take for PvE as it allows you small control over adds and/or raid mechanics which will allow you and your raid group a little more control over a situation. With a 30s CD it’s perfect and never have to worry much about messing up.
Repentance - Has a cast time, such a terrible nerf from Cata and is broken on any damage caused, meaning it's not ideal in a group and is covered by an array of other standard class abilities provided by another class (Rogue Sap, Mage Polymorph)
Evil is a Point of View - Fear basically, but in a PvE environment the cast time and the fact it breaks on damage, allowing the target to wonder and the possibility of pulling more trash is just not worth it.
Tier 3 - Healing
Selfless Healer - This turns your judgement into a stacking buff and when at 3 stacks your next Flash of Light is Instant Cast, cost no Mana and heals for 60% more (on other targets), there are some fights where this is decent, and it’s down to personal playstyle, some people like this however it’s not as strong against its rival in this tier.
Eternal Flame - Turns your Word of Glory into a HOT. A very strong HOT too, which is effected by haste. You should at all times keep it up on both tanks. It also adds an initial heal at the start so it can be used as both a go to heal not as strong as WOG is, but with the addition of the HOT. Healing through BOL makes you basically add 50% of the HOT to your BOL target, and it stacks with all EFs. meaning you're HOT spread around the raid will do substantial healing to your BOL target.
Sacred Shield - Not as strong, and with the abundance of Disc Priests in raid groups it’s not needed since it will not get much shine over a PW:S.
Tier 4 - Defensive
Hand of Purity - Places a Hand on the target reducing damage taken by 10% and suppressing DOT effects on the target by 80%. When we have Hand of Sacrifice it’s not worth it really since in raid encounters there isn't anything would really require you to use this that cannot be dispelled.
Unbreakable Spirit - A dead healer is a dead raid. This is mostly for yourself, since it reduces the CD of both your Divine Shield and your Lay on Hands by 50%. With your Divine Shield stopping you from taking damage/dying its really helpful to have this active more often, also allowing you to completely ignore raid mechanics for some time. Also who doesn't want to be able to throw out life saving LOHs more often?
Clemency - Can be helpful, really helpful depending on the fight mechanic, giving you the ability to use your hands twice before the go on CD, two Freedoms, two sacrifices, two protections. Make good use of them and it’s a really strong talent.
Tier 5 - Holy Power
Holy Avenger - while active makes all your Holy Power gaining abilities to grant 3 Holy Power instead of one. Great for serious burst healing in times when you want to throw out Eternal Flames on your group, or for supreme AOE healing from Light of Dawn. Though there are rare occasions when this is actually useful, there maybe times when you find it preferential.
Sanctified Wrath - Great for some strong tank healing phases, when you want to upgrade your Avenging Wrath for something a little stronger, reducing your CD on Holy Shock by 50%, giving you more sustained Holy Power generation without wasting any like Holy Avenger would give, meaning you can use your other abilities too while doing so.
Divine Purpose - Although being RNG it will allow more sustain and uptime of Eternal Flame and more Light of Dawns within a fight. The chance to proc is fairly high, making it wonderful for getting off fully powered Eternal Flames on your tanks, and those who need it the most while AOE healing a lot with LoD.
Tier 6 - Healing Cooldown
Holy Prism - Useful for some fights where everyone is spread around, placing it on the boss to then smart heal 5 random members within range. Great for some fights that require this, it’s also a fairly short CD. This can also be placed on a friendly target to heal them more and causing a little AOE DPS.
Light’s Hammer - The strongest of the tier, dealing mass AOE healing within a circle for 14s. Great for fights where you have to stack up and pop a healing CD to deal with a mechanic, also deals good DPS to all enemies within slowing them by 50% for its duration.. On a one minute CD it’s really strong for a 14s uptime aoe heal. Think of it as Efflorescence on steroids.
Execution Sentence - Fairly weak in MOP with limited uses outside PvP. I cannot recommend it in any situation in PvE.
Glyphs are interchangable, and more down to your personal preference.
There is one glyph I would say was 100% and that is Glyph of Divine Plea as it reduces the CD on Divine Plea but it only gives 50% of the mana back, however this is strong when you know how to sustain your mana and you get to the point where you are comfortable with your Mp5 to know how and when you need to use your reduced Divine Plea.
Other glyphs of mention to think about to use.
Glyph of Flash of Light - When you Flash of Light a target, it increases your next heal done to that target within 7 sec by 10%.
Glyph of Divine Protection - Reduces the magical damage reduction of your Divine Protection to 20% but adds 20% physical damage reduction.
Glyph of Beacon of Light - Removes the global cooldown on Beacon of Light.
Glyph of Divinity - Increases the cooldown of your Lay on Hands by 2 min but causes it to give you 10% of your maximum mana.
Minor glyphs are of no importance, they are visual and provide no increase in your ability to heal.
Stat Priority
Intellect > Spirit* > Haste Breakpoint > Mastery = Intellect > Haste > Crit
Spirit: Spirit is what is important to you has a healer, however once you start to master your class and nail down fights you will soon learn that you get comfortable with your Combat Mana Regen (Mp5). Start of with as much Spirit as you can find and then slowly work your way down until you find your ideal Mp5 and keep to it. Personally I find 14k Mp5 my sweet spot.
Haste Breakpoints: Running Eternal Flame you want to be breaking certain haste breakpoints to get the most out of every EF duration. Your first breakpoint is 3506 to get your first two extra ticks of Eternal Flame (13) when using Seal of Insight and have a Haste raidbuff.
The chart below shows you the haste breakpoints per tick of Eternal Flame taking into account Seal of Insight and 5% Haste Raid Buff.
http://i.imgur.com/1wYMtKk.png
Mastery: Mastery applies a absorb on each target you heal, working for both AOE and single target heals (including Beacon). This is one of our strongest heals alone, most of the time coming out 3-4th on our healing done. This should be pushed as much as possible after the Haste Breakpoint which you are going for.
Intellect: Gemming intellect isn't a priority, you should only really take what is standard on your gear, instead gemming more since you only gain 160 Intellect points per gem for a pure Intellect Gem, however gemming for a secondary stat gives your 320 of X stat.
Crit: Crit isn’t of importance in PvE since you want to be going for sustain over the RNG crit provides. Getting them Infusion of Light procs might seem nice but you have plenty of time to get out your healing casts. Nor is there the need for chunk healing so much, especially with other burst healers (Disc Priest, Resto Shaman).
Gems and Enchants
As said previously gemming for a primary stat gives you less value per gem than a secondary stat.
Primary Stat gems gives 160 points per gem, Secondary Stat gives 320 points per gem, and a Mixed Stat gem provides 1:2 ratio between Primary:Secondary, giving 80:160.
Also take into account that you might have to mix and match Haste and Mastery gems in order to perfectly reach your breakpoints where reforging might leave you missing them.
Red Sockets: 80 Intellect + 180 Haste/Mastery
Yellow Sockets: 80 Intellect + 180 Haste/Mastery
Blue Sockets: 180 Haste/Mastery + 180 Spirit
Meta Socket: 432 Spirit + 3% Critical Effect | Legendary Healing Meta
Enchanting your Gear you should also take into account your Haste Breakpoints, and as such you should follow your stat priority here, try and enchant for Intellect here since you gain the same point value as a secondary stat.
Weapon: Jade Spirit
Prepull
Apply your Beacon of Light to one of the tanks, if you are focusing on Tank healing then put BOL on your Off-Tank, as you will mostly be healing your MT. If you are Raid healing then place BOL on your MT. Build up an Eternal Flame on each tank so they start the fight with their HOT and your Mastery Absorb.
Tank Healing
Tank Healing you want to be keeping tanks topped off as much as possible.
Keep Eternal Flame on both tanks, a note here is that Eternal Flame HOT is transferred via BOL. So applying Eternal Flame and keeping a 100% uptime on both tanks is required, for it to do huge healing
Holy Shock off CD, on either tank, just someone who needs a quick top up.
Eternal Flame keep a 3 Holy Power EF up on both tanks 100%
Flash of Light when needing an urgent Burst Heal, followed by a Divine Light (if you have taken the glyph)
Divine Light with your Infusion of Light proc for a stronger heal than Flash of Light with the same cast speed.
Holy Light to keep the tanks topped up when you have time for a nice long cast with minimal mana cost.
Raid Healing
Raid Healing can be pretty mana intensive, since Holy Radiance costs a substantial portion of your mana, and should be times when it is of most use, don’t blindly spam it unless you have an Infusion of Light proc just to add the absorb on the raid. Light of Dawn to consume your Holy Power if the raid is taking damage, or if individuals are taking more damage then use Eternal Flame on them as you would tanks, to pass on more HOT healing to you tanks BOL
Holy Radiance used for topping off the raid, it’s a Smart Heal meaning it will heal the lowest first.
Holy Shock with your Daybreak stacks acquired from Holy Radiance which turns your Holy Shock into a semi targeted AOE heal on the target you use it on.
Light of Dawn with your Holy Power/Divine Purpose procs during raid-wide damage portions.
Eternal Flame any players taking higher damage than others, also on your Tanks. Can be spread with Divine Purpose procs.
Light’s Hammer use for Heavy AOE moments where casting Holy Radiance will just not be enough.
Holy Light filler spell if you are running low on mana and someone needs topped off.
Cooldown Management
Knowing how your CDs work and in what situation to use them you will perform much more effectively.
Divine Plea is important for our mana regeneration, using this before you get to the point of low mana is essential. Using it at 50% means you are not dropping low and it will top your off substantially that it will be off CD by the time you should need it again.
Avenging Wrath should be used during times of crisis. Think of this as your panic button. Can be used at the same time as Divine Favour for some serious healing when everyone is close to dying.
Divine Favour increases both Mastery and Haste by an additional 20%. For when you need to get out a few stronger heals. Can be used with Avenging Wrath.
Devotion Aura applies a raid-wide 20% damage reduction and silence immunity for 6s. Great defensive for minimising raid-wide damage from a mechanic.
Guardian of Ancient Kings another strong “oh ****” cooldown, giving you 10% haste for the duration and healing the target for 100% of any healing you do. Brilliant in time of need for Tank Healing.
Divine Shield removes all debuffs from you and makes you immune to everything for 6 seconds. You can use this to basically avoid entire mechanics of fights, like non dispellable debuffs.
I shouldn't need to go through what your Hand abilities do, they are fairly self explanatory and obvious of when to use them.
Holy Paladins have great synergy with other healers, proving the most to each class in terms of class mechanics, raid mechanic counters and healing throughput. Within a 10M raid where you generally only take 2 healers.
Disc Priest bring Power Word: Shield meaning they stop your tanks/raid taking damage while you heal them up. They would play as a Tank Healer in this instance mostly, as you keep the entire raid up with your AOE healing.
Holy Priest not so common to see as everyone prefers FOTM Disc, but when you do see one they are amazing AOE healers. They will keep the raid up with their Holy Word Sanctuary, Circle of Healing and Prayer of Healing… For this you will most likely be on Tank Healing priority.
Resto Druid work very well with a Holy Paladin, my other healer in my progression raids were a Resto Druid, they have the the best mix of tank and aoe healing as do Holy Paladin giving you both flexibility, they apply the hots to everything and you top everyone off with actual healing.
Resto Shaman feels a bit weak as a team, since both of you are active healers who do chunks of healing over steady sustained healing, and both of you bring great healing cooldowns to the table, it can be a fight for actual healing throughput with this combination.
Mistweaver Monk provides some nice steady healing with their direct tank healing, combined with Jade Statue, along with some decent raid healing with Uplift. I’ve never personally played this combo however they both have toolkits that work well together.
I personally have found the most effective way of healing being using a raid frame addon (ElvUi, Grid, Vuhdo etc) and then using Mouseover macros, this gives you a better reaction time since you don't have to click on your target to heal them just mouseover their frame and then hit your heal bind.
Basic Mouseover Heal (Interchange spell to what you desire)
Code:
#showtooltip Divine Light
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Divine Light; Divine Light
Holy Shock, will heal Target if friendly, will heal Target of Target if Target is enemy, if you hold alt it will damage your target if enemy, or will damage Target of Target if Target is friendly.
Code:
#showtooltip Holy Shock
/cast [nomod,@mouseover,exists,help][nomod,help][nomod,@targettarget,help][nomod,@player][mod:alt,harm][mod:alt,@target][mod:alt,@targettarget,harm]Holy Shock
Addons are fairly important, and you need your UI to be clear so you can be exact in everything. I would highly recommend Elvui for this, even in its default form it's ideal for healing, showing you all your buffs (BOL, EF, Hands), Dispel targets and Heal amounts.
Other acceptable Raid Frames: Grid and Vuhdo.
Another would be something to track Holy Power, personally I prefer NugComboBar. It’s smooth, looks good, configurable and light little Holy Power monitor.
TellMeWhen to track your procs such as Infusion of Light, Daybreak, Trinket Uptime etc.
You can find 5.4 versions here
Elvui**
Grid
VuhDo
NugComboBar
TellMeWhen
** This is my upload of ElvUI from my old 5.4.2 retail client. Works perfectly.
BIS List
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