Holy Paladining in 4.03 - A beginner's guide

Mmmm, shiny new stats page.

Now that 4.01 is out, and we have some class changes upon us, I wanted to re-write my Holy Pally guide to give folks that are a little stuck an idea of what's going on. This will just cover basics, and it's worth noting that things will be quite a bit different at 85.




What to expect as a Holy Paladin

We have changed fairly drastically in 4.01. No longer are we the tank healing nukers of wrath. Were now a great deal more mobile, have a new resource to watch for, new spells, and an aoe heal. While we still possess tank healing capability, the way in which it's done is different than before.

The Spec

Now that the talent trees are 31 point trees, it's a great deal more difficult to mess the spec up. But, as we don't yet have access to all of our points, you may be left wondering where to put a few, so let's take a look at a cookie cutter build.

Standard 80 Healing Spec - This is pretty much the build I'd recommend. There's some tempting talents, such as 6% more healing done across the board in prot, or putting a second point into Last Word or Paragon of Virtue. You will get those, but not yet. Tanks aren't dipping low enough to warrant Last Word, and Paragon of Virtue just isn't as good as some of the other things available right now. With how reliant you will be on Holy Shock and Word of Glory, it's worth beefing them up for the time being.

The biggest thing I'm seeing other paladins do right now is try to take Improved Judgement. I can't stress enough how much you do not need this. Yes, your judgement will have a shorter range. Yes, it sucks. But you just don't have the points for what is essentially a quality of life improvement over raw throughput. Blizzard is forcing us into melee range more than ever, and you'll still get some range out of Enlightened Judgements, so don't worry about it too much.


Blessed Life is apparently proccing off some aoe abilities, but it's not clear whether this is intentional, so choose for yourself whether a point there is worth it or not. It's not worth 2, even for pvp 1 is more than enough.

As always, if anything here is unclear or if you just have a question, or maybe want to argue my logic with me, drop a comment.

Glyphs

With the way Glyphs have changed, we get some freedom to play around with them. This is awesome. It's much more fun to be able to swap a glyph in and out based on the fight, or choose based on playstyle rather than be stuck with certain ones and no flexibility. Let's take a look at our options.

Prime:

Holy Shock - A solid glyph. Recommended. It will proc more infusions, which is always good. But, if you need to swap something, I'd suggest losing this one first.

Word of Glory -  An excellent glyph. Highly recommended.

Seal of Insight - Our best glyph. Use it.

Divine Favor - Not a bad choice if you find yourself needing more time with it, but for the most part gear should outweigh the value of this one. Look elsewhere first.

Major:
There's quite a bit of flexibility here, a lot of good glyphs and none that are flat required. Don't be afraid to swap these as you need them.

Beacon of Light - Now that beacon lasts 5 minutes, this glyph has been changed to make it cost no mana. With Tower of Radience encouraging us to move our beacon around, this is a pretty damn good glyph.

Cleansing - Since you can "miss" with a cleanse now, this is nice for fights where you know you'll be cleansing a lot. (You can cleanse a target with nothing to cleanse, effectively just wasting mana)


Divine Plea - 5% more mana back from your plea. A very solid glyph if you need it, but I'll get more into plea usage later.

Divinity - Another great glyph if you're having mana problems.

Light of Dawn - This glyph now just makes Light of Dawn hit 1 more target. The value here depends on if you need the mana from the other glyph choices, and if you actually have that many targets to hit. I'll probably skip this one until I get some gear at 85, then look at my group's damage in 85 raids and decide. Since I'm focusing on 10 mans, there aren't enough melee in my group to actually warrant the extra target.

Lay on Hands - To judge the value of this glyph we have to look at a few things. The first is what are you doing? Are you doing a heroic where you might need the cd more often? Use it. Are you doing a raid where the fight won't last long enough to use it twice even with the lower cd? Don't. Is there enough trash between this boss and the next for the 10 minute cd to be up? Don't. It's situational. Not a bad glyph, but I wouldn't consider it a staple of my healing spec.

Minor:

All our minors are uninteresting. Insight, Kings, and Might are the only ones that affect us, and they each just lower the mana cost of their respective spells by 50%

Gear

So now that you have your spec created and your glyphs picked out, it's time to ask yourself what stats to
look for on gear. What makes something an upgrade?

Haste - Still an awesome stat. However, it's lost some value for us now that were using so many instants. There's still some debate in the holy paladin community about how much you should have, but personally I'd still recommend using 750-900, at least until Cata comes out.

Intellect - This stat is the holy paladin's drug of choice. It gives us spellpower, crit, and increases our mana
pool.

Spirit - This is your big regen stat after Intellect. Don't overlook it, as we don't have a large amount of mana tools anymore.

Crit - Now that illumination is no longer a talent, crit is really just a chance for a bigger heal. It's not terrible, but it's not great either. You should get enough of it without necessarily trying to stack it. Reforge some to spirit if you feel like you are having mana problems.

Mastery - I want to explain our mastery a little. It's important to note that if the shield is not used, and you cast another spell, they do NOT combine. If the first shield was bigger than the new one, it will refresh. If it was smaller, it will override it. We use a lot of instant cast spells now, meaning we heal faster than boss abilities swing, usually. This diminishes the mastery for us quite a bit. It's a good mastery, but I wouldn't bother reforging for it or trying to stack it just yet. If you feel like you must have it, reforge crit for it. Mastery and crit take the same amount of rating to gain 1%. (Reforging 1% crit will give you 1 mastery, whereas it would take more than 1% haste to give you 1 mastery. Haste rating scales differently.)

Gems

Gemming your Holy Paladin is painfully simple, as long as you remember a few things about gemming itself:


-You do NOT need to match colors. Any colored gem can go in any colored slot. The colors are ONLY for
the bonus. If you match the colors, you get the bonus. If you don't, the gems still work, but you just don't get
the bonus. All you need to worry about is meeting the color requirements for your meta gem. As a holy
paladin, socket bonuses are never worth it.

-Bonuses can be filled by multi colored gems. An orange gem can be placed into a red OR yellow slot and
still count towards the bonus. Additionally, an orange gem counts as both a red AND a yellow for filling your
meta requirements.

-A prismatic gem counts as ALL THREE colors. So, if your meta requires one of each color, one prismatic
can do the job.


With these simple rules in mind, gemming is incredibly simple, to the point of being boring. Use an Insightful Earthsiege Diamond in your meta slot, then put a Nightmare Tear into your helm socket, as helmets usually
have the best socket bonus. Now, your meta is filled just but putting on your helmet! Fill every single other
slot on your gear with intellect gems.

Another option we have now, since intellect gems are red, is using an Ember Skyflare Diamond, but since we won't be using plea a lot and seal of insight is base mana, not max, it doesn't help regen. I'd still recommend the insightful.

Random Tips About Gear

-Wearing all plate does give a bonus now, a straight 5% more intellect if you are only wearing plate. Keep that in mind when looking at gear.

-t10 4 set bonus still sucks. Get 2 set using shoulders and helm, then offset pieces are better.

Playing your Holy Paladin
I want to go over each spells usual use, and then get into some tricks I've learned to help things along.

Spell Usage:

Holy Light - This is like the "auto attack" of heals now. For most wrath content, it's just too weak and slow to do the job.

Flash of Light - Our highest HPS comes from this now. It'l be your main tank healing tool.

Divine Light - Powerful, slow, and expensive. If the tank is taking heavy damage, this is the tool for the job.

Holy Shock - Use this pretty much on cooldown. Cheap, powerful, and generates holy power. An excellent spell. Daybreak procs will let you use this more, and the built in "power auras" will show you when this is procced.

Word of Glory - Use this at 3 Holy Power. It's free (in terms of mana) and it's powerful.

Beacon of Light - This should always, always be up. Healing this target directly now will generate extra holy power. Be aware that beacon alone may no longer be enough to keep a tank up, so keep an eye on them.

Aura Mastery - The biggest use for this spell is not doubling devotion aura or making you immune to silences. The biggest use is doubling magic resistance auras to reduce damage. Dragon about to cast a flame breath? Throw on resistance aura and aura mastery it for a huge reduction. This is incredibly powerful, although learing when to use it takes some time.

Hand of Sacrifice - This is almost as powerful as Pain Suppression, but don't forget that it makes you take damage too! A good thing to do is to bubble when you use this, although usually casting a couple heals on yourself is enough.

Hand of Salvation - If you are getting used to healing and have some time to watch your threat meters, help out a dps by using this on them. The best time is to wait until they're just barely under the tanks threat. Since it is a percentage drop, the more threat they have, the more they drop.

Hand of Freedom - This spell works on a lot more boss fights than it gets credit for. On Rotface, the kiting tank might be slowed by running through slime, freedom fixes it. On Sindragosa, her breath slows down tanks so it takes them longer to get to ice blocks. Freedom fixes that too. If it slows you, freedom probably helps. It also helps on some weird things too, such as Icehowl in ToC. When he turns around and breaths, hand of freedom will take you out of that little stun it causes.

Lay On Hands - This spell is not something most paladins will use efficiently. It takes alot of practice and experience to know just when to pop it, but it can mean the different between a wipe and a kill if used properly. I can't really explain when the right time is, just try to use it and get used to it, and make sure it's keybound.

Divine Plea - Make sure you cushion this spell when you use it. By that, I mean use something that increases your healing to offset it. Only use it when there's minimal damage going out.


Seal of Insight - Although it's a small amount, this will return some mana from melee swinging the boss. Take advantage of it. Just don't be in front of the boss, you'll cause it to parry your tank.

Light of Dawn - Our AoE heal. Be aware that it heals people you are facing, so pay attention to your positioning. It also uses holy power. The more you have, the better it is. It's pretty worthless with only one Holy Power, and 2 is not optimal either, but will work in an emergency. using this on 3 holy power when you actually need the healing will be your best use.

Misc Information
Addons
The default ui is actually useable now, but still isn't perfect for healing. However, if you must, check out my guide to healing with the default ui. It's a little outdated, since the new raid frames are out, but much of it still applies.

As far as healing addons go, I highly recommend Vuhdo, it simply is the best. I even have a guide on setting it up!

Really any raid frames will work, just make sure you're using some sort of mouseovers or click bindings so you don't have to target your heal target. My guide to the default ui will explain mouseovers better.


Things are changing pretty quickly, so

/bubblehearth