FoL Holy Paladin - [An Endangered Species]
Hi everyone and welcome to this guide!
My name here is Idylia and I currently play a holy paladin with a FoL spec. because, if you still don't know, paladins have 2 different ways of healing.
This guide will be focused, as I said, on the FoL spec as I didn't see a lot (probably no one in here). This is the one that bases its healings on Flash of Light.
1. Differences between FoL and HL
Well, as I said before there are two ways of healing: FoL (Flash of Light) and HL (Holy Light). The first one consists of healing using basically Holy Shock when you have no CD on it and then Flashes either instantly or casting them, but rarely using Holy Light. On the other hand, HL consists of basically healing with Holy Shock (for the buff that it gives to Holy Light) and then continue healing with Holy Lights, however it doesn't mean that flashes of Light could not be used many times.
2. FoL vs HL
Although many people think that HL is the only valid spec to heal from iCC onwards (or even before); this is actually not really accurate in my opinion. Actually, I will show you in this guide why I think that FoL is better than HL for healing iCC10, iCC25 and probably a big part of iCC10HC.
3. Talent Build
The one that I recommend is 51/0/20 in the very beginning, once you have enough crit you should change to 51/02/18.
There are 2 points that you can switch from Improved Gbom to Conviction and as I said, in the beginning when you don't have enough crit, 3 points from Divinity to Sanctity of Battle.
4. Stats
Intellect: This is the favourite stats for most of the pallys, however not for me. Increases mana, crit, spell and the amount of mana given by Divine Plea.
Spell Power: Increases your healings. It increases HLs healings more than Flashes ones.
Haste: Basic stat of every character due to the reduction of the GCD, this is: the time needed between spells. A paladin should have, at least, 676 so the GCD becomes 1sec.
Critical Strike: This stat is not as important as the others but can really change a lot your healings. It is not the same to heal 40 crits and 60 normal heals than 30 crits and 70 normal ones.
MP5: Allows paladin's mana regeneration. This stat is, in my opinion, useless for a paladin. Instead of MP5, if you have mana problems, you should gem Intellect.
5. Gems & Enchants
5.1 Gems
I will show you some combinations based on the gear:
1st combination: Low set
Red: +23sp / +12 sp +10haste
Yellow: +20haste / +12sp +10haste
Blue: +20haste
Meta: Insightful Earthsiege Diamond
2nd combination: once you have 676 of haste capped:
Red: +23sp / +12sp +10crit
Yellow: +20crit / +12sp +10crit
Blue: +20crit
Meta: Beaming Earthsiege Diamond
This combination, as said, assumes that the paladin capped its haste and increases a lot the critical strike so it compensates the low healing from Flash of Light. Due to this, it is not necessary to gem intellect because there is a really low waste of mana.
3rd combination:
Red: +23sp
Yellow: +23sp
Blue: +23sp
Meta: Embler Skyflare Diamond
This combination is for the ones having a high gear, haste capped and really high crit. Only makes sense to continue gemming with spell.
5.2 Enchants
Head: +30sp +20Crit (Kirin Tor)
Shoulders: +24sp +15crit (Hodir)
Cloak: +23haste or tailoring
Chest: +10stats
Bracers: +30sp or leatherworking
Gloves: +28sp o engineering
Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle
Legs: +50sp +30stamina (better having stamina than spirit for hpala)
Boots: +12hit +12crit
Rings: +23sp (enchanter)
Weapon: +63sp.
Shield: +25int
6. Glyphs
Major- Flash of Light
Major - Holy Shock
Major - Light Seal
Minor - Gbok
Minor - Gbow
Minor - Lay on hands
7. iCC with a hPala FoL
First of all, I highly recommend a HL spec for healing iCC25HC, but IMHO is not necessary before. The reason: iCC25HC has a huge damage either AOE and on each player, this is excellently covered by the HL paladin which helped with the glyph of HL and the big healings from that spell.
Lord Marrowgar
Even though it should be a really easy boss it can get complicated because of dps stuck in fire. However, in most of the cases for the aoe damage it should be enough with your Light Judgement and some Flashes. Why should you heal 5k-10k with healings of 20k if in the same time you would have already casted 2 flashes of light of 9k? Non-sense to go HL spec in this boss before iCC25HC.
Lady Deathwisper
Same as Lord Marrowgar, if you raid with people that already know how to do this, the damage is not really a big thing and you should be able to solve it easily with flashes of light.
Gunship:
Here a FoL hpala will definitely be much better than a HL paladin (with the same gear). Let me explain myself, a HL paladin will have its build prepared for having mana, however a FoL paladin will be focused on increasing its crit and its spell power. The thing is that in this boss mana could be unlimited, you will only need to spam some flashes during your ship phase. Once the tank jumps to the other ship you will spam HL (yes, HL) your mana will decrease incredibly fast, don`t worry, you have enough time to use Divine Plea and get mana hitting melee attacks to the adds from your ship with your Seal of Wisdom.
Deathbringer:
In iCCNM there is no need (most of the times) to use a single HL. However, if the gear of the tanks is bit low you will maybe have to use some at the end of the boss.
Festergut: Absolutely no need to use HL before iCC25HC, the damage is perfectly covered by Judgement of Light and some flashes. For iCC10HC and maybe iCC25 you will potentially need some HL on the tanks.
Rotfce: It can be healed perfectly with a FoL spec before iCC25HC, however for iCC10HC I have the feeling it could be more helpful a HL spec rather than a FoL spec.
PP: During P1 & P2 you can heal it easily with Flashes, use Divine Plea at the end of 2nd phase and enjoy casting HL to keep the tanks alive.
BPC: Absolutely no need to use HL spec before iCC25HC, maybe some HL on iCC10HC.
Lana'thel: In this boss there is a huge AOE damage on the raid, this is why it is more useful a HL paladin from iCC10HC onwards (however on iCC10HC I don't think there is a huge difference). Before iCC10HC, I really think that FoL is enough and having endless mana is way better than having more aoe healing (Judgement already heals a huge part of thay damage on both nm modes).
Valithria: FoL spec beats all those HL paladins full intellect. You will have endless mana again with better crit and spell, spam HLs.
Sindragosa: Here HL is really much better because of a simple reason: the debuff. You have a limited number of spells before stoping healing for some fixed seconds, this means that the better would be to maximize those healings so the raid is prepared enough for those seconds when you stop healing.
This is the theory, however in both NM modes it's easy to heal with a FoL spec.
LK: This combat can really last a lot, I do prefer FoL spec for NM modes so I don't have to worry for mana and I can concentrate on more important things.
Well, this is everything by the moment. Hope you liked it, and please every feedback is welcome! Have a nice day! :)
