4.3.4 Holy Paladin - PvP Guide
By: Juggertank
Updated: March 26th, 2015
Note to New Players:
Use this guide as a startup, but when you lose a match, come back here to reread advanced tips to help your performance. Don't try to absorbed the entire thing at once.
Note to Experienced players:
Use this guide as a reference to check that you’re remembering everything you could be doing in the battle.
Table of Contents
Section 1-Preparing your Character (basic)
A. Introduction
B. Healing Spells/Buffs
C. Gear Used
D. Interface required
E. Macros
F. Suggested keybinds
G. Talent/Glyph Specs
Section 2-Holy Paladins in Action (intermediate)
A. Opening
B. 2v2 Team Basics
C. Holy Power Generation
D. Mana Generation
E. Beacon Placement
F. Miscellaneous Tips
Section 3-Advanced Tips (Difficult)
A. Countering each class- how to
B. Cooldown use
C. Map Mastery
D. Stun timing
E. Rebuking
F. Fake casting
G. Doing damage
H. Holy power perfection
I. Mana Perfection
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Section 1-Preparing your Character (basic)
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A. Introduction
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Holy paladin is a healing class that uses combo point-style healing, then uses casts to fill in the gaps. They also have an incredible number of cool-downs to add to the mix, making holy paladins a reigning king in battleground healing.
The mana regeneration is envied by every healing class, and the healing power of a paladin will make you giggle if you're used to playing a mitigation-style healer.
This guide should give you the knowledge to have fun as the Invincible Holy Paladin.
B. Healing Spells/Buffs
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This is a general description of each ability without a major cooldown.
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Holy Paladin's Main Passive:
Walk in the Light- 10% overall Healing, +30% WoG Healing, No CD on WoG.
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Holy paladin's four buffs:
Blessing of kings- 5% buff to major stats, + magic resistance.
Concentration aura- reduces the amount of casting time lost when you're hit by damage.
Seal of insight- general healing seal; grants mana on most melee strikes and increases healing with glyph.
Beacon of Light- when you heal someone, the beacon receives 50% of the heals. When you heal your beacon, he does not receive the extra heals, you just generate more holy power. Beacon is best kept on yourself, if you're new.
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Daybreak (proc)-
This is a "meh" proc. It lets you cast 2 holy shocks without a cooldown.
Eternal Glory (proc)-
This is a very good proc. It lets you cast 2 WoGs without a cooldown in between.
Infusion of Light (proc)-
This is your best friend, your peace of mind. This proc reduces your next cast by 1.5 seconds.
Flash of light- now instant
Divine light- 1 second
Holy light- 1 second
Holy radiance- 1 second
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Word of Glory-
Commonly known as WoG, this is a paladin's overall best heal. It consumes no mana, but rather holy power. Word of glory heals for 20,000 non-crit, 40,000+ crit.
Flash of light-
high speed, expensive, medium powered spell. Like similar abilities, it should only be used in emergencies or when the fight's duration is limited.
Holy light-
Slow, efficient, weak cast. This really isn't something used in pvp, but it's a super efficient heal to use if pocket healing vs a single target.
Diving Light-
This is a paladin's jaw-dropping heal. It heals 20%-60% in a single cast. It is slow, expensive, but still efficient.
Holy radiance-
Holy Radiance is a Very Slow, Expensive Cast. It has the approximate healing power of a holy light on every target it heals, but it can heal several targets, so it is still mana/heal efficient. This also is a VERY good way to stack your conviction quickly.
Holy shock-
A paladin's bread and butter, a cheap, instant heal that can open the door to massive amounts of healing to follow, via procs. you MUST use the holy shock macro in the macros section, it is CRITICAL that you use that macro.
Crusader strike-
A Melee hit that generates a holy power.
Judgement-
Judgement in 4.3.4 is nothing more than a buff-trigger. Though it's on an 8 second cooldown, it should only be used to maintain the 60 second buff, or to get someone into combat, as it costs very little mana.
Cleanse-
Holy paladins have by far the most powerful cleanse, and with the glyph, it is the cheapest. The cleanse will remove 1 magical effect, along with one disease or poison.
Rebuke-
Basic Melee interrupt; 10 second cooldown and locks out the Caster for 4 seconds.
(See rebuking in advanced tips)
Turn Evil- fear (instant with glyph) any undead/demon. This means it can be used on warlock and/or death knight pets. It can also be used on death knights with lichborne (their self healing mode) active.
Holy Wrath- Best Use: Stunning Demons/Undead when your Turn Evil has Diminishd to no effect. Also a Good AoE ability to reveal rogues, druids, or mages. Also a fairly good damage source if you need to help your dps.
C. Gear Used
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- The Holy paladin set uses the “ornamented” items; which have intellect, rather than strength.
- Belts Boots and Wrists should all be “_______ of Meditation” which means the secondary stat is spirit.
Why does it have to be spirit?
It doesn't. However spirit is the most powerful and reliable secondary stat for a Holy Paladin. It's a good idea to start off with it as high as possible, at least until you find your comfortable spirit level.
Trinkets:
Trinkets in 4.3.4 are all over the place. their procs and their bonuses can be confusing. However, keep in mind that holy paladins have a buffed mana regeneration through spirit, so you either want a Spirit trinket or a Resil Trinket.
Suggestion: Use one with a spirit bonus, and one with a resil bonus.
I will be running arenas with the emblem of tenacity and heart of unliving.
Spirit:
The Updated version of tsunami... The Best of the Best in 4.3.4:
Heart of Unliving (Heroic).
If you want the steady spirit, but also have some burst power:
Reflection of the Light (Heroic)
Resil:
- _____ Gladiator's Emblem of Tenacity
- _____ Gladiator's Badge of Dominance.
- Horde/Alliance Freedom Trinket for NON-humans.
-Gems-
Gems have a Very simple rule for holy paladins.
Red: +50 Intellect (or similar)
Blue: +25 Intellect / +25 Spirit (or similar)
Yellow: +25 intellect / +25 critical strike (or similar)
Meta:
+54 Spirit,+3% Crit Effects
+54 Int, +3% Crit Effects
+54 int, +10% max mana
-Reforging-
There is no absolute best, you need to adjust to what you've been having issues with.
Spirit is best to outlast other healers, crit is best to hold up against double dps.
Find your balance between spirit and crit;
Crit <-----------------------------------------> Spirit
(Power, luck-based) (Efficiency, safe and constant)
Want a Recommendation?
Spoiler:Show
2 Spirit per one crit rating.
I feel this is a fairly comfortable ratio for everyone to start at.
-Enchantments-
Head: Vicious Intellect
Shoulders: Vicious Intellect
Cloak: Darkglow embroidery / +50 Intellect
Chest: +20 All Stats / +40 Resil
Wrist: +130/ +50 Intellect
Weapon: Power Torrent (EDIT: Power torrent actually increases mana regen properly now, so it is more powerful than heartsong
Shield: +40 Intellect
Gloves: +65 Mastery/ mana gulper
Belt: Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
Legs: Ghostly Spellthread
Feet: +35 Mastery & 8% movement speed
D. Interface required
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-Holy Paladins Have a few Addons that they need to keep on top of their game. These are just a few:
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Other Suggestions:
SaySapped - Instantly forces your character to say “I’m sapped!” upon being sapped.
GladiatorLOSA - Voices out spells being casted by enemies; used in arenas, similar to spellalerter
E. Macros
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Be sure to put your name wherever you see "Juggertank" in these macros.
Holy Shock Macro
THIS MACRO IS A MUST! (put your name in where mine is)
#showtooltip Holy Shock
/cast [help] Holy Shock;
/cast [@juggertank] holy shock
/stopmacro
Guardian macro
#showtooltip
/cast Guardian of Ancient Kings
/p -- Guardian Released --
/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\CREATURE\\KingTerenas\\IC_Te renas_Event05.wav")
Crusader strike macro
#showtooltip crusader strike
/target [@mouseover,harm]
/startattack
/cast crusader strike
Freedom Macro
#showtooltip hand of freedom
/cast hand of freedom
/p Granting %t Freedom
Buff/Anti-Sap Macro
This is critical for facing Rogues. I'll explain why in the Anti-Rogue Portion of Section 3-A
#showtooltip
/cast [@juggertank, spec:1] blessing of kings;
/cast [@juggertank, spec:2] blessing of might;
/use Flask of Enhancement
Survival Macro
#showtooltip Alliance Battle Standard
/use Mythical Healing Potion
/use Alliance Battle Standard
/use 14
/use Healthstone
Judgement Macro
#showtooltip
/target [@mouseover,harm]
/cast [harm] judgement; [@targettarget, harm] judgement;
/use [harm] Embersilk Net; [@targettarget, harm] Embersilk Net
/cast[spec:1] [nodead, harm]Hand of Reckoning;
/startattack
/stopmacro
Divine Favor (Increased Haste/Crit) Macro
#showtooltip
/cast divine favor
/use 13
/p Lightspeed!
/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\CREATURE\\KingTerenas\\IC_Te renas_Event05.wav")
Mana Regen Macro
#showtooltip divine plea
/use Cataclysmic Gladiator's Ornamented Gloves
/use volcanic potion
/cast divine plea
/breath juggertank
/p -- Restoring Mana --
Rebuke Macro
#showtooltip rebuke
/stopcasting
/cast [target=focus, harm] rebuke
/cast rebuke
Stun Macro
-Will intelligently look for targets to stun if you do not have a specified focus target.
#showtooltip hammer of justice
/cast [@focus, harm] hammer of justice;
/cast [harm] hammer of justice
/cast [@targettarget, harm] hammer of justice;
/cast [@mousover, harm] Hammer of Justice;
/stopmacro
Hand of Sacrifice Macro:#showtooltip hand of sacrifice
/stopcasting
/cast hand of sacrifice
/cancelaura illuminated healing
/stopmacro
Turn Evil Macro
(don't have to target the pet to fear it, if you're in arena. For battlegrounds, you still need to target or mouseover the pet)
--------------------------------#showtooltip
/cast [@arenapet1,harm][@arenapet2,harm][@arenapet3,harm][@arenapet4,harm][@arenapet5,harm][@mouseover,harm][]Turn Evil
Add this into any of your macros for an epic suprise :)
/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\CREATURE\\KingTerenas\\IC_Te renas_Event05.wav")
F. Suggested keybinds
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G. Talent/Glyph Specs
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The General Talent Tree of Serious Holy Paladins:
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1. Heavy Hitter SpecThis Spec puts three points into Divinity, and then two points into Improved Hammer of Justice.
+ Survivability
+ Base Healing
- RnG Healing
+ Control
- Team Mobility /Rescue
- Safe Judgement Distance
2. BoP/Freedom Spec.This Spec puts two talent points into Improved Judgement and three points into Guardian's Favor.
- Survivability
- Base Healing
- RnG Healing
- Control
+ Team Mobility
+ Rescue
+ Safe Judgement Distance
3. RnG Wog Spec.This Spec Puts two talent points into Improved Judgement, and three points into Rule of Law.
- Survivability
- Base Healing
+ RnG Healing
- Control
- Team Mobility/Rescue
+ Safe Judgement Distance
4. Long-Range Healer SpecThis Spec Puts Three talent points into Divinity, and two points into Improved Judgement.
+ Survivability
+ Base Healing
- RnG Healing
- Control
- Team Mobility/ Rescue
+ Safe Judgement Distance
My Personal Spec is the Heavy Hitting Spec.
I built and use this spec because I am not a fan of RnG, nor a fan of under-maximum healing power.
Trolling/Shockadin Spec:
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Section 2-Holy Paladins in Action (intermediate)
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For this Part, I’ll be using The 2v2 setting as a basic introduction, as it is a great starting point for any class to be learned.
A. Opening The Match
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When An Arena Starts, The first thing you want is to get your judgement off, so you can start your mana regen right away, and avoid being sapped and having to trinket very early. Also, pick your LoS/Pillar Object, and begin adjusting yourself.
B. 2v2 Team Basics
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Vs. Healer/DPS:
This Fight will be A mana war, with a few tide-changing factors: Crowd control, Bursts, and
chain interrupts. Watch out for the early CD-Blowers, they may try to take you by surprise. Focus on interrupting and harassing the healer to force cooldowns, and rotating yours if your partner drops below 35% Health. As a holy paladin, if your mana management is victorious over the enemy's, you will be called OP. Take it as a compliment, as not every holy paladin is *perfect* with their mana.
VS. Double Deeps (2x DPS)
-This can be a match that will keep you on the edge. However, you have one advantage;
survivability.
-Send your DPS on the person with the least survivability. Example: Vs. Frost Mage/Shadow Priest, you would go on the shadow priest because the mage can ice block twice while the priest heals him.
-Rotate your Cooldowns to keep your DPS topped off, leave no room for him to drop.
-Stun the enemy who will be most affected by it on cooldown (rets get a holy power, mages can blink, Warriors get a slight self-heal, ETC).
C. Holy Power Generation
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Your Word of Glory is the key to your success. It’s Procs and Crits will be a Big factor in whether or not you win your match. There are 5 ways to generate your holy power.
- Crusader Strike
- Holy Shock
- Take Damage (once per 8 seconds)
- Get Stunned
- Heal Beacon with Flash or Divine Light
-Cast Holy Radiance
D. Mana Generation
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Mana as a Holy Paladin is easy as 1-2-3.
1. ALWAYS keep Judgement of the Pure ON. Don't let that fall off.
2. Divine Plea whenever you're at 85% mana and your your team is topped off or the engagement is going slowly.
3. - Seal of Insight has NO Internal cooldown, meaning that you could literally sit next to someone hitting them and getting 936 mana back every single hit, if you were lucky enough. This ability right here is what sets good holy paladins apart. While being trained, a good holy paladin will be sure to get as many melee hits off as (s)he can, that way (s)he can afford the mana cost of instant flash of lights.
E. Beacon Placement
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Your beacon can be used in four ways:
(My names for the style)
-Ironman healing
-spread healing
-focus healing
-Sniper Healing
1.Ironman healing - Ironman healing is where you beacon yourself, and proceed to heal your allies. You will receive a large amount of heals, mitigating most damage coming your way.
This means you can focus on healing your allies, and every now and then healing yourself. Protector of the innocent helps with this.
2. Spread healing - Spread healing is where you beacon one target, while healing another. This means you are healing for 150%+ protector of the innocent on yourself, healing three people at once.
When doing this, you need to know who's getting heals and how much they're getting. You, yourself, are getting very very little, enough to mitigate some Aoe damage. Your beacon will be receiving the half amount of heals, while your target is receiving a lot.
This means you should put the beacon on the target with the higher health of your two healing targets, and heal the lower one.
3. Focus healing - Beacon and heal a single target.
The tower of radiance talent is what you're using here. As you heal the beacon, you will generate more holy power than normal; allowing you to increase healing output and mana efficiency. Use this when you are in arenas or holding up a flag carrier who is under a lot of pressure.
4. Sniper Healing - Beacon a target at 100 Yards, holy light a target nearby.
Beacon of light has a range of 100 yards, and takes healing from anyone you heal within 60 yards of them. If you did this right, you could heal a beacon 100 yards away by healing someone half way between.
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Final Note - You will need to switch between the three(maybe four) a lot in battlegrounds and 3v3 arenas, so make sure you have your beacon on a keybind. As you start moving your beacon around, you'll get a feeling for the three methods.
F. Miscellaneous Tips
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1. Transmog-
Spoiler:Show If you're doing battlegrounds; use common sense. If you wear a flashy transmog to get noticed... YOU WILL GET NOTICED. If you're running random bgs, I suggest a low profile transmog set. And especially one that does not scream "hy, I'm a paladin, cc me, over here!"...
2. Kiting-
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So When you're against a melee DPS (druid for example), you shouldn't be able to sit perfectly still. Naturally, healers will put their backs to the DPS and start to focus on their healing efficiency, in preparation for a long, drawn-out battle.
There's only one thing that the healer is forgetting here... he's forgetting his parry and block chance.
As a holy paladin you have a 5% block chance, and a 5% parry chance. however, these are ONLY effective if you are actually facing the DPS.
Moral of the story? Do NOT turn your back on an enemy DPS, because here's what you could have cancelled out:
- A Rogue's entire shadow dance can be ruined by keeping them in front of you.
- A Druid's Backstab-like ability, their main DPS source.
- A warrior's Juggernaut-empowered slam could be blocked and cancelled out.
All of this can be done by doing the "hunter kite", which you can ask any skilled hunter how to do in-game.
3. Race Selection:
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Horde:
Blood Elf is the race of choice for a holy paladin... Preferrably female because male blood elf animations look pretty stupid.
Alliance:
Human, no questions asked. The 3% spirit bonus is incredibly powerful, and the weapon specialization is a huge boost if you want to also play retribution.
Section 3-Advanced Tips (Difficult)
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A. Countering each class- how to
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A few tips to counter classes most often encountered in arenas.
Warrior:
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General:
Use crusader strike on cooldown to generate holy power and minor bonus self-healing when a warrior is on you.
Fury: focus the fury warrior, pop bubbles when they start burst, save stun for their shattering throw.
Arms: save hand of freedom for their root.
Paladin:
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Holy: be the aggressor, denounce and stun as often as you are comfortable with, you have to break them down.
Retribution:
- Retribution Paladins will most likely roll a 2x DPS, either with a rogue, DK, or hunter.
In any of these cases, you need to send your DPS on the Ret.
YOU need to watch for the ret's burst. Any Good Ret will drop their guardian as soon as the fight begins... keep that in mind. Soon after the guardian, his wings will follow. As Soon as his wings are up, you need to pop a couple defensive cool downs (Hand of Protection, sacrifice, divine favor, aura mastery) and top your partner. In combination to this, you should throw your stun at the ret paladin as well (before or after your other cool downs).
Don't let your partner chase a Ret's partner, because they have the ability to MASSIVELY heal a low-health partner (they cannot heal themselves quite as strong as they can heal their partner. This means time wasted by your DPS.
If they switch onto you, you need to recognize it, and use your divine protection to escape them.
Rogue:
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THIS MACRO IS A LIFE-SAVER!
#showtooltip
/cast [@juggertank] blessing of kings;
By Buffing someone in combat, you automatically get dragged into combat for two seconds. Blessing of Kings/Might IGNORE LINE OF SIGHT. This means you can be pillar LoS-ing your partner (through fear, blind, root, etc) and Maintain combat status by spamming Blessing of Kings!
Opener (If with a warrior): Rogues will always sap you before you can get to his healer or dps partner, that's just the way it is. But warriors have a dirty little trick up their sleeves called intervene. If the warrior intervenes you right at the start of the match, the sap on you will go straight to the warrior, and the rogue will open on the warrior as normal, completely ignoring the fact that you're not actually sapped.
Stay in combat! There will be no drinking vs rogues. Keep him from easy-stealthing by bleeds and dots. Always use stun on rogues rather than their partner, if double dps... because the rogue is their main source of control.
-be sure to cleanse off mind numbing and wound poison before you use your healing, IF the rogue isn't constantly re-applying it. (like when the rogue is CC'd and you're topping off your dps.
Druid:
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Feral:Spoiler:Show if the Druid tries to kill you, put your back to a corner, use shock and crusader strike to generate power, and just wog it out, they will cyclone you and switch.
Now comes the hard part... Dealing with "predatory swifness" cyclones. about every 10 seconds the druid will use it's finishing move, either a bite, rip, or stun, and get a proc called "predatory swiftness". When you hear that from gladiatorLOSsa, It's time to act quick.
Predatory swiftness is an instant cast on nature abilities, which is pretty much the feral's entire spellbook, including Cyclone. You need to work assuming that the feral will use it's pred swiftness to instant cyclone you every single time.
- Vs. Disc Feral:
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Your DPS should stay on the disc at all times. you should be cleansing the feral's snare and healing him without an issue. One setup this comp likes to do is to have the feral cyclone you a couple of times, and then fear you into a mind control or a mana burn.
Counter: Use hand of protection on your DPS when you hear GladiatorLOSsa announce "predatory swiftness" which means the feral has just ripped your DPS. If you do it right, the feral should have wasted his rip, and put you into a cyclone. Now the priest will move to you in order to get a fear off.
Now the Priest is going to throw their round at you, Fear:
the Priest has to wait until they're SURE you are out of the cyclone, or they will waste the fear. You, on the other hand, can spam the living hell out of your hammer of justice, until you are free, and get the stun immediately after breaking out. this should give you the time to heal your partner or sprint away from the priest.
Balance:Spoiler:Show Los is key. Do not let the Druid maintain dots on you AND your partner. You will get into trouble. Stun the Druid whenever he star falls, and get some hit-and-run interrupts on big casts. (Rebuke, Los)
Resto:Spoiler:Show gladiator level resto Druids will run with a resilient partner, and be a heavy Ccer. However if you can pressure him, the fight's in your favor. Send your dps on the Druid. When you see nature's grasp, you freedom your partner. Druids are 100% vulnerable to interrupts, so when they are low, chase them down and look for the rebuke.
Resto Druids have a dirty trick; they switch forms to remove slows, then they switch to travel form and speed away.
You're prepared to counter this, thanks to me. You've glyphed into seal of justice. You're going to maintain the Seal of justice debuff on the Druid; locking them in at 100% movement speed, crippling their mobility.
-your dps should be able to drain their mana with this crippling debuff; if the Druid continues to survive with little mana loss, your dps has been doing something wrong.
Hunter:
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hunters are serious pains. I suggest a tellmewhen monitor for their scatter shot. Have your dps run to you if they get low, and eat the incoming trap. Warriors are very good at this with intervene. Hunter's do not have enough burst to down your dps alone, they rely heavily on chain cc, so they will run with another dps, usually feral, rogue, or ret. kill their partner first, as hunters have a LOT of defensive abilities.
Vs double dps (something like ret pally, hunter), here's an odd strategy to try:
sit on the hunter's partner (the one your partner should be attacking) using crusader strike and holy shock, spam-generating holy power and spamming WoG on your partner... You may eat a silence, but any AoE spells will break your cc, and your partner is a lot more likely to eat a trap shot your way.
Mage:
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Frost: frost mages are based around cc and burst. Like hunters, they depend heavily on cc. The key to beating one is outlasting their cold snap. When you spot their cooldowns, make sure your dps is 100% focused on defensive. Los, freedom, and interrupts will get you through it. If you are facing frost/healer, down their pet first.
Fire: fire is based on dots and disorients. Dispells are your ticket here. Dispel your dps constantly, and sacrifice them when they're low. If your dps has a disorient, save it for when the Mage gets cauterize, where they get a chunk of health back, but it burns away. If the Mage is disoriented through this, they cannot ice block.
Priest:
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Shadow: shadow priests are a strong cc class, and must be controlled. Their vampiric touch will fear you upon dispell, so focus on keeping it from being casted. Dispell their dots and train him hard. If a shadow priest is allowed to free cast, you're in trouble. Use all stuns on the shadow priest.
Discipline:
-Stun the discipline priest right as the match opens, and get a judgement on him. Discipline priests like to buff up their teammates with mitigation spells while they have their mana efficiency stance active, rather than their power stance. keep them from doing this, and they'll drop down to about 85% mana before the fight even gets going.
Discs are a very hard class to beat, but you have two great advantages over them; your healing power and mana regeneration. Your dps needs to step up against them and put out enough dps that the priest needs to stay defensive. The Priest is almost always the kill target when you face them, unless they have a warrior or a warlock for a partner.
- Vs. Disc Feral:
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Your DPS should stay on the disc at all times. you should be cleansing the feral's snare and healing him without an issue. One setup this comp likes to do is to have the feral cyclone you a couple of times, and then fear you into a mind control or a mana burn.
Counter: Use hand of protection on your DPS when you hear GladiatorLOSsa announce "predatory swiftness" which means the feral has just ripped your DPS. If you do it right, the feral should have wasted his rip, and put you into a cyclone. Now the priest will move to you in order to get a fear off.
Now the Priest is going to throw their round at you, Fear:
the Priest has to wait until they're SURE you are out of the cyclone, or they will waste the fear. You, on the other hand, can spam the living hell out of your hammer of justice, until you are free, and get the stun immediately after breaking out. this should give you the time to heal your partner or sprint away from the priest.
This is an occurance that you'll probably run into a lot:
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Situation: You/Melee dps vs. disc/Melee dps in 2v2.
Around 2300 mmr I noticed a pattern with discs, which I call the wrap-up trap. You send dps on the disc, disc sends dps on your dps.
Here's how it will play out:
-Your dps (assume dk) will sit on the disc.
-Disc finds a pillar, begins circling.
-The enemy dps(assume feral) will sit on your dps and build pressure.
-when your dps hit's approximately 2/3 health, he will sit in one spot,placing the pillar squarely between you and your dps. This is their kill setup.As he sits there mitigating damage, he watches for you to come running around the pillar to save your dps. When you come, he lines up the perfect fear, hitting both yourself and your dps.By this point, your dps is half health, you're in a 6 second fear. The disc and his dps have 6 seconds to do whatever. This will usually consist of dots on your dps, a penance into him, and a dispel or two. When your fear breaks, a good feral will go for the full cyclone(any dps will have a cc waiting). This will probably be the one you trinket, if not the fear. Now your dps is at atleast 1/3 health, and you have to use wings or purpose to bring your dps back up. The priest has sucked out your trinket and a couple cooldowns without even using any of his own major defensives. The disc will rinse and repeat, forcing all of your cooldowns, and eventually landing the easy kill on your dps.
This is where, at high mmr, your dps needs to become a fully functioning player, not just a dps. You need to instruct him on when to switch off the disc. If the disc is swinging around the pillar as if he's on a leash, send your dps to the open and fight dps vs dps, where you can heal. switch back to the disc with peels if he attempts to come to your pillar, make him know that he's going to have a tough time going offensive. Every second that he hasn't used his fear, you're taking away his power.
Death knight:
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Unholy:
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Unholy.... the strangulating death knight. where to begin... Let's start off with some of their basics...
Their Pressure Layout:
- 40% from pet
- 30% from Necrotic strike Debuff
- 20% from melee damage
- 10% from DoTs.
Their strategy:
- Stack Necrotics
- Maintain Dots
- Build up pet & drop gargoyle
- Look to interrupt you, to start the CC/Kill Chain.
- Slow you the whole game, to allow their partner to land crowd controls on you.
Their Strengths
- Necrotic strike gives a 30% cast time increase
- They have a dot that makes all DoTs Immune to Dispel.
- They are incredibly resilient against crowd control
- Their Pet has a charge and a stun
Their Weakpoints:
- They have No REAL burst.
- Their Pet can be feared every 8 seconds
- Their Pet and Gargoyle can both be stunned
- Their Necrotic strike only lasts 10 seconds
- They can't sprint
So.... how do we beat this?
- Don't attempt to dispel dots if their Unholy Blight is up.
- Don't attempt to cast while their necrotic strikes are on you.
- Stack their pet and gargoyle during burst, stun them both with holy wrath. then you find a pillar to LOS the gargoyle.
- Fear the Pet On Cooldown
- If the death knight lets the necrotic strike timer get low, but there's still a large amount of debuff, stun him. let the debuff just fall off.
- sprint+freedom will let you get away from the dk every time. they can't sprint.
USE YOUR iNSTANT CASTS!
- crusader strike
-holy shock
- flash of light (with IOL)
- melee auto attacks
These, paired with your cooldowns, should allow you to survive the death knight for a very long time, while only hard-casting a couple times.
Frost:
Spoiler:Show
Frost death knights are warriors + utility. - Burst. They need to be trained and controlled. If facing a CC-Heavy team (such as a mage) than try to get the frost DK's dots, they DO break crowd controls.
-Necrotic Strike Counter:
If you realize the enemy dk is stacking a large amount of necros without dealing much damage; you can clean off the necrotic strike debuff by using hand of protection. Just know the dk can still death coil, howling blast, and silence you.
Shaman:
Spoiler:Show
Killing totems THROUGH Stoneclaw:
-Use Offensive holy shock on totems, as stoneclaw does not block holy shock damage.
Restoration:
Spoiler:Show
What you should do:
- Hammer his totems hard. A shaman's totems are cheap if only used once, but they will eat away at his mana if he has to keep placing them.
-DO NOT let him drink. You have the best mana regen in combat, and it you can't let the shaman get around that. Do not, however, spam crusader strike on him. He gains mana when he takes damage (water shield). You want to stay close to shamans, because they have no instant CC, unless they use two cooldowns at once.
What your dps should do:
Do NOT "train" the shaman (unless they are undergeared). Shamans are strong under steady, predictable pressure. If you do want the shaman to die, it needs to be a suprise attack, or better known as, a "hard swap".
(This is where your dps Slow the match down, shock one of his dps with some sudden damage, then activating bursts and double-bursting the shaman down)
Elemental:
Spoiler:Show
After some pretty deep learning into the shaman mechanics, I've discovered a few tips that Every Holy Paladin should know, in order to counter them.
- Get in range to interrupt the shaman, and then dispel his flame shock. he will most likely start to spam lightening, which should be easy enough to interrupt and lock him out of the nature school for 4 seconds, which should entirely cancel out the duration of the shaman's haste buff.
- Keep his totems destroyed, as they will oom him (same as a Resto shaman) if he needs to keep placing them down. When he hits low mana, his dps will wither, and your team will get the upper hand.
- Freedom SOMEONE immediately after he drops his earthbinding totem, so that they can keep the shaman from free-casting Chain lightening.
-dispel the knock back debuff ASAP
Enhancement:
Spoiler:Show
THIS IS CRITICAL:
- Kill their searing totem, any maybe earthbind if you see it.
You want the shaman to not notice that their searing totem is down, so that their dps will fall off, and their huge lava lash will not hit nearly as hard as normal.
Other than that, just try to avoid the interrupts a shaman has.
- Use hand of Sacrifice when you see hex, as it should break early on damage taken.
Warlock:
Spoiler:Show
-fear their pet on cooldown
warlocks are a dot-n-fear class, they look to get your partner low, and then triple fear you while getting a slow-and-steady kill on your partner. The trick to beating this; focus the warlock, no matter the comp. focus on rebuking, losing, and stunning the warlock.
Use your wings when your dps is at half health rather than 33% or 25%, Because warlock damage is increased If the warlock manages to get your dps low, they will rethink what they are doing. Try a switch incredibly when their target reaches low health.
every now and then onto the lock's pet, as it reduces damage taken by the lock by 30%, and if that is lost, they will be incredibly vulnerable.
Summary:
Put together these class countering tips whenever you have trouble vs a comp. the two classes combined will make for a nice guide to beat each comp.
B. Cooldown use
Spoiler:Show
[Avenging Wrath] -
commonly known as wings, should mainly be used when an enemy has their offensive cooldowns, to counter the damage as well as possible. Don't hesitate to use this if your partner is in trouble.
[Divine Favor] -
this is an improved version of wings. Though it may not seem so, this effect actually trumps over the healing by wings. Use this if there's another wave of strong damage, and wings are on cooldown.
[Guardian of Ancient Kings] -
Arguably the most op healing cool-down usable in arenas. Use this in two situations:
1. Facing two dps and they both are attempting to burst.
1. Your partner is going to die if they don't get that healing NOW. (15% or less)
[Aura Mastery] -
this is your interrupt immunity (if you're in concentration aura). When it's up, you use it to it's full extent. You are casting flash of light or divine light it's entire duration.(or at least until your partner is topped off)
NOTE: this will not grant you silence immunity without concentration aura, you'll learn that the hard way in battlegrounds.
[Divine Plea] -
this is not an emergency mana backup. This restores 12k mana and can be used every two minutes. It Should be used every two minutes, preferably at a time when you are about 15k below max mana, and your partner is set. This is your responsibility.
[Hand of Sacrifice] -
this can replace wings, but it is also a cc-breaker, making it also more powerful than wings, but used in the same situations. Use it BEFORE the crowd control is used on you.
-only good against break - on - damage crowd control (polymorph, hunter trap, scatter shot, ring of frost, blind, sap, etc.)
[Hand of Freedom]-
this spell is overrated, as any skilled arena team will either dispell it or stun your dps entirely. You only use it when
A. Everything is going slowly, and your dps needs it to apply pressure.
B. The fight's getting intense, and it's needed for a kill.
C. You're rooted away from your dps, who is low.
[Hand of Protection]-
bop, or second bubble. This is a good cooldown vs Melee players. Vs warriors it is a show-stopper. Use it when you see Melee cooldowns such as shadow dance, recklessness, zealotry. It can be used mid-blind, so if your dps is below 50%, and you're blinded, use it.
-Can also be used as a dirty necrotic strike cleanse.
[Divine Protection] -
a holy paladin's sprint/bark skin. It reduces damage taken and puts you into sprint.
[Divine Shield] -
commonly known as bubble, this ability is considered super overpowered. Use in desperate situations. Teams will try to dispell it ASAP, so don't hesitate with your healing.
[Hammer of Justice] -
Commonly known as HoJ, this is your 6 second stun.
(Check stun timing)
C. Map Mastery
Spoiler:Show
D. Stun timing
Spoiler:Show
Power-interrupt:
Paladins and priests each have an immunity to interrupt for a short time. They will try to take advantage of this and free-cast without paying attention to placement or potential interrupters. Hammer of justice is a stun, but it does the same job. Stunning an enemy during this interrupt-free time will waste their cooldown and put them in a seriously rough spot.
- Creative Aura Mastery:
You can Use your stun to control anyone who is looking to interrupt you. for example, you are facing a mirror team with another holy paladin, who has chosen to use the same pillar as you. When your dps is low, they will look to rebuke you. Stun them first before casting, and there's no need to worry about being interrupted by them.
-locking in a kill:
When an enemy is low, you would want to stun either their healer, that target, or a peeling dps.
-fighting fire with fire:
When an enemy uses their cooldowns, a stun can offset their momentum, and mitigate their burst damage.
-using it regularly(offensive only):
If you use an offensive spec, you have the option to use the stun as a tactical control ability. When the enemy dps is at around 2/3 health, a well timed stun can cause a panic, force cooldowns, or even lead to a kill on a weak target.
E. rebuking
Spoiler:Show
Rebuking is an under-used interrupt, and for a good reason.
Since the rebuke is a Melee interrupt, it requires you to be generally accessible by enemies.
You should not often place yourself in the open, but use the same pillar as the enemy healer (focused) and interrupt any casts or cc spells you can.
There's a little trick, suggested by sacredheals from retail; called a rebuke-stun.
Rebuking an enemy keeps them from casting for 4 seconds.
If you were to rebuke, count to 4, then stun the enemy for an additional 6 seconds, you've just let out the most powerful chain of instant-cc there is.
Try it, the rebuke-stun is a dirty trick of mine, which I do as often as possible in 2s.
F. fake casting
Spoiler:Show
Fake casting is something you should know how to do, however, you need to know when it has to be done, and when it doesn't.
First, you need to check and see if the enemies are trying for interrupts and how hard. Do this by leaving yourself open to interrupts every now and then, and wait for an interrupt. If they fail to interrupt you a few times, you've got a bad team on your hands. If they manage to interrupt often, here's what you do.
Fake casting it an attempt to draw out interrupts. (so you can cast worry-free right after). It also may cause your enemy to expect a fake cast, and not interrupt your first one.
(Which you can actually follow through with and get a free heal off)
-only do this with flash of light, because it will force your enemy to make quick, hard decisions as to interrupt it or not.
Fake when your dps is above half health, to draw out interrupts. This way, if your dps is taking a lot of damage, you can safely cast and get them out of trouble.
When to stop the cast?
-You can start and stop instantly.
-you can half cast
Anything above a half cast, to me, is a waste of time.
-always be sure to use your shock between fake casting, so you do not lose your healing output.
G. doing damage
Spoiler:Show
Holy paladins are not meant to do much damage. However, your damage can mean the difference between a kill and an enemy’s recovery. When you are going for the kill, you have a few weak damage-dealers to throw at the opponent.
1. crusader strike - will hit around 3,000
2. Holy shock- Can crit around 12k
3. Holy wrath - Can crit around 7k
4. judgement- Will hit around 3k
5. Adding Wings To the Mix Will put a fair amount of pressure onto the enemies.
None of these abilities share cooldown, so if the odds roll in your favor, you can deal around 25,000 damage to an enemy in an execution attempt.
Keep in mind that you should ONLY do this if your target is floating at around 15,000 health. If their healer gets them back to 20,000, you should reset, top off your players, and continue the match.
H. Holy Power Mastery
Spoiler:Show
Your word of glory is a very powerful heal... and it free. however, mastering the generation of it, and achieving 100% holy power efficiency is something that not many holy paladins do.
100% Efficiency= Using Each holy power you generate to it’s maximum potential.
At this point, you’re probably thinking “Get 3 holy power, wog...” Well, It’s not that simple.
You have a Holy Power Cap... this does not only mean that you can only spend 3 at a time. it also means you cannot HOLD any more than 3, so you do not want to generate a 4th holy power, ever.
Example: You’ve decided to carry the flag in a battleground. You’re taking all sorts of CC, Stuns, Silences, interrupts, and most of all, damage. Casting is pretty much out of the question.
To have the best chances of survival, you need to perfectly time your WoG, and all abilities generating it.
Look again at your ways of generating holy power:
- Crusader Strike
- Holy Shock
- Take Damage (once per 8 seconds)
- Get Stunned
- Heal Beacon with Flash or Divine Light
If there’s a warrior on you, 1. he’s going to charge you, 2, he’s going to deal damage. there’s two holy power Already Generated.
You’re now left with the question... “what next”?
A. Holy Shock
B. Crusader Strike
C. Cast flash of light
though all of them will get the job done, flash of light should be ruled out as it costs a large chunk of mana, and it can be interrupted.
A. Holy Shock
B. Crusader strike
Now there’s a mathematical question; should you just generate holy power and possibly some mana with crusader strike; or should you go for the heal and holy power? it completely depends on how low of health you are. if the warrior has put 30k damage into you already because he’s using his DPS trinket and deadly calm, you would obviously want the heal right then and there. but if you haven’t taken 15k damage yet, you want to save the holy shock for later, when you need it more.
The same question goes for word of glory timing; Using a 3-power WoG on a 96% health target is not a wise choice. WoG normally heals for ~20k, so you would want to at least wait and be 15k below max health before using such a powerful heal.
You’ll have to make these decisions rapidly if you wish to maximize your healing. Sometimes you will fail to make them, over-generate holy power, and not notice it. However, later on, when you’re at 20k mana, fighting to keep your squad alive in a battleground, you’ll either pay the price of being lazy or reap the benefits of your discipline.
Another situation:
You've been tanking vs a dps for a while now, and your mana is running low. You're going to look to your holy power discipline to regenerate your mana and continue surviving. You need to know that via blessing of life, you'll generate holy power every 8 seconds. You need to make sure you time your generation and WoG so that blessing of life never over-generates your holy power. Generally, you would hold off generating it yourself, for the blessing of life to come, then you wog and regenerate your holy power.
I. Mana Perfection
Spoiler:Show
So This's a Deeper explanation of your mana goals. Earlier in the guide, I showed how to regenerate mana, but not exactly how much.
For example:
If you stack your spirit enough to over-generate all of the healing you do, you're Wasting a Cooldown; divine plea. If you're a Blood elf, you're also wasting your racial.... So here's what you do. You want to Generate enough Mana via spirit to lose about 10k mana per minute. Blood elves can lose around 12k mana per minute.
WHAT? LOSE MANA?
yes. you want to trade in your spirit for some crit, which will give you more powerful healing, and make your time healing easier. You can use your divine plea correctly, you can operate with ~400 less spirit, do more healing, and still float at 80% mana... Sometimes if you over-stack spirit, a lot of it will go to waste, you'll sit at max mana, but not getting critical shocks or WoGs, and now your partner's dead.
This is why, you want to set your spirit up so that you sit at maximum mana very rarely.
If you have any questions, you can find me on Warsong.
"Juggertank" - Human Paladin
Note: I'm not going to spoon feed anyone the basic info they need. There are certain things that are very clear in the guide, and I won't waste a half hour of my time giving information that doesn't need to be clarified.
Short arena video I had in 3s.... I used a lot of this guide's tactics including the interrupt, 4sec, stun.Spoiler:Show
Watch it on youtube page for notes via subtitles.
[YT]Fzo2NSr96RU[/YT]
If you liked this guide, consider checking out my Arms Warrior 4.3 PvP guide.
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Banned
[Guide] Holy Paladin 4.3.4 PvP
4.3.4 Holy Paladin - PvP Guide 
By: Juggertank
Updated: March 26th, 2015
Note to New Players:
Use this guide as a startup, but when you lose a match, come back here to reread advanced tips to help your performance. Don't try to absorbed the entire thing at once.
Note to Experienced players:
Use this guide as a reference to check that you’re remembering everything you could be doing in the battle.
Table of Contents
Section 1-Preparing your Character (basic)
A. Introduction
B. Healing Spells/Buffs
C. Gear Used
D. Interface required
E. Macros
F. Suggested keybinds
G. Talent/Glyph Specs
Section 2-Holy Paladins in Action (intermediate)
A. Opening
B. 2v2 Team Basics
C. Holy Power Generation
D. Mana Generation
E. Beacon Placement
F. Miscellaneous Tips
Section 3-Advanced Tips (Difficult)
A. Countering each class- how to
B. Cooldown use
C. Map Mastery
D. Stun timing
E. Rebuking
F. Fake casting
G. Doing damage
H. Holy power perfection
I. Mana Perfection
__________________________________________________
Section 1-Preparing your Character (basic)
Spoiler:Show
Section 2-Holy Paladins in Action (intermediate)
Spoiler:Show
Section 3-Advanced Tips (Difficult)
Spoiler:Show
If you have any questions, you can find me on Warsong.
"Juggertank" - Human Paladin
Note: I'm not going to spoon feed anyone the basic info they need. There are certain things that are very clear in the guide, and I won't waste a half hour of my time giving information that doesn't need to be clarified.
Short arena video I had in 3s.... I used a lot of this guide's tactics including the interrupt, 4sec, stun.Spoiler:Show
If you liked this guide, consider checking out my Arms Warrior 4.3 PvP guide.
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Banned
Just for future reference, you can get a hold of me on any of these characters.
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