[Holy] 85 Guide: The Spec

This is part of my healadin guide for those interested in end-game healing as a paladin. You can view the important stats for healadin incliuding stat priority in the first installment by clicking here.

32/5/4

They way the current talents are working there are a variety of different ways to plant a certain amount of points. Given the options, I will go through each tier to highlight the options.

Tier 1

Arbiter of Light – This is a DPS talent given that our judgement crits give us no benefit and we don’t have Templar’s Verdict.

Protector of the Innocent – At least 2/3 is recommended here to fulfill the 5/5 points to move to tier to. This allows every heal you deal to others to deal a small self-heal amount that is also transferable to the Beacon target.

Judgements of the Pure – Maximize this talent 3/3 for a full 9% haste. This buff lasts for one minute and you should try to maximize its uptime to all close as 100% as possible.

Tier 2

Clarity of Purpose – This is not one of the aforementioned optional talents. This reduces the cast time of Holy & Divine Lights by upto 1 second and with those slow, spend-forever-casting-times you’re going to find these necessary.

Last Word – Whether or not you are an avid user of Word of Glory or not, given the other options this talent has a great life-saving mechanic.

Blazing Light – This talent is unneeded as an end-game PVE healer as we do not use Holy Shock in damaging ways.

Tier 3

Denounce – This talent is a leveling based talent given that it focuses around Exorcism.

Divine Favor – Haste & Crit? Yes, please!

Infusion of Light – If you are a Holy Shock-aholic, critical effects will directly shorten the cast time of Holy Light by 1.5 seconds.

Daybreak – No HS CD? Cha-ching.

Tier 4

Enlightened Judgements – This provides judgement range, hit rating from spirit, and a judgement self-heal. This talent can be optional given that the range is small being only 5 yards and we don’t get that much from hit rating other than for jdugements; our heals will not miss.

Beacon of Light – Take.

Speed of Light – More haste? Yes, please.

Sacred Cleansing – Given the mechanic changes with Cleanse, to remove magic you must spend this point.

Tier 5

Conviction – At 3/3 you can get to a maximum 9% buff to all healing done. This is one of the foundations for crit being on the priority stat list given that it procs from Critical Strikes.

Aura Mastery – Take.

Paragon of Virtue – This has a good benefit to reduce the cooldown of Avenging Wrath by 1 minute which matches it with Divine Plea. Given the buff to DP, off-setting the remaining deficit with AW will make stronger heals during the 4.0.6 9 second duration of DP with a remaining 20% boost to healing for a remaining ~10 seconds.

Tier 6

Tower of Radiance – Given that this no longer benefit and grants HoPo from Holy Light casts (and hasn’t benefited from HS in a while), it has been debated in dropping this talent but I still find that the benefit of this talent are somewhat strong when fast HoPo may be needed or for general tank healing benefits.

Blessed Life – While this talent is specifically a PVP talent, people have reported specific fights or occurrences where the HoPo generation can be as great as 17% of all charges generated; however, these are very specific mechanics when this happens.

Tier 7

Light of Dawn – A spell that has been changed multiple times since its induction as our 31 point talent, it can still be a decent heal and use for HoPo but it does require skill in placement as it is a directional, conal heal.

((For Prot & Ret tree support, check behind the cut!))

[Holy] 85 Guide: The Stats

When attempting to find out what a holy paladin needs, it can be complicated and hard to sift through all the numbers and coefficients that are produced on sites like Elitest Jerks. To a casual reader or player, these sites never really seem to answer the questions that you’re really asking; I’ve decided to to an end-game guide for Holy Paladins in a simple form.

I’m going to start with the basic question: What stats help Healadins?

The super simple answer to this question is Intellect, Spirit, Haste, Crit, and Mastery.

But even simple answers can have simple explanations.

Intellect

Intellect is the strong foundation for everything that a healadin needs, it lays the base to build upon by providing:

• Mana (Maximum)
• Spell Power
• Spell Critical Strike
• Mana Regeneration

To clarify that maximum mana is our highest mana possibility with buffs like plate specialization, kings, paws, brilliance, or food like Pickled Guppy. Base mana on the other hand is the minimal amount of mana that you have while being naked and completely gearless. Maximum mana directly improves mana regeneration from things like Divine Plea, Replenishment, etc.

Spell Power

With the release of 4.0.1, spell power was removed from gear, gems, and possibly most food options and/or flask options as well. The main provider of spell power is Intellect and it does appear on weapons. Spell Power is a stat that has the most potency when directly effecting our healing abilities by making the spells hit harder.

Haste

Haste for a healer makes the spells we are trying to cast move faster. With Divine Light and Holy Light having a base cast speed of three seconds, haste directly effects how slow or fast we can cast these abilities. The haste cap at 85 is well over the 3000 mark and around 27% which is hard to even contemplate at this tier level. The cap places you at the maximum 1 second GCD (Global Cooldown).

At a haste rating of 747 (5.83%) DL & HL are at an ~2.6 second cast.

Remember that as a holy paladin, we can gain 9% haste by taking 3/3 points in Judgements of the Pure and judging a minimum of once per minute.

Critical Strike

Crit was once a a prioritized stat given that it had high mana returns but that feature has been removed. Given the low amount of over-heal crit is now better than it was at the end of Wrath. The direct benefit is that when a spell crits, it hits for extremely more meaning that we will cast less, and in turn drain less mana. Critical effects from virtually every ability including Protector of the Innocent proc Conviction that stacks to 3 buffing healing by 9%; having enough critical for the most uptime of Conviction is optimal.

Mastery

Our mastery has taken a long time to be recognized in our healing done, it is arguable whether or not is still being counted accurately or not but either way it doesn’t seem to play a  big enough part with such a small effect that we can barely send a tank in with the buff long enough for the first hit. This is produced by direct heals and not through Beacon or PotI.

It takes approximately 179.28 Mastery Rating at Level 85 to gain 1 point in mastery. Noting the tooltip above, our shield will gain 1.25% absorption for every 1 mastery (~179 rating).

Spirit

The strongest source behind our most solid mana regeneration. The amount of mana regenerated through spirit is buffed by the amount of Intellect that we have. Typically, the amount of mana regeneration from spirit in combat is reduced to spirit but part of the holy specialization (Medititaion) allows 50% of our mana to continue regenerating from spirit while in combat. Spirit coefficients are complex and hard to determine but if you’re having mana troubles, try obtaining more Spirit.

Stat Priority

1. Intellect
2. Spirit
3. Haste
4. Crit
5. Mastery

The position and priority of mastery and crit can change depending on gear and further tier levels but it is debatable for the time being. It depends on how you notice your uptime of Conviction is working whether or not you need more critical strike rating, but for the most part Crit can be reforged off into other more efficient stats.

I hope this first installment of the Level 85 guide helps, please stay tuned for more information and helpful tips to making it as a healadin.

Throne of Tides: The Paladin

My current level is 83 and I have been within the Throne of Tides thrice. Each one yielding a new something…

Trip 1: I was under the impression that this may have been the shortest instance in existence given that we only fought the Shaman & the Neptulon event. It turned out that they had lost a couple people in the group and had already defeated the first two bosses. I was a noob.

Trip 2: Started the full instance but no quests were involved. I saw…for the first time in a VERY LONG TIME…crowd control! I also got to experience the cut scene and all the boss fights!

Trip 3: I just finished EVERY single quest in Vashj’ir (I would note that is the FIRST and ONLY zone I have ever done that in!) and comlpeted the Loremaster achivement for the zone as well as [20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea] and [Visions of Vashj’ir Past]…when I entered this instance this time, there were quests to be had and a superior level of understanding to what is actually going on in this instance and I found it absolutely amazing.

Also, every time I have been in this instance, I have seen something new drop. Something paladin that makes my heart swoon; but I also know the healing mechanics and so I thought I would write it all up and share it!

I won’t talk about spec, I am using the same spec that I have already covered recently in build analysis, but I have dumped my 81, 82, and 83 points into finishing off Crusade (in Ret) and maxing 2/2 in Eternal Glory (in Prot).

Healing things to note:

• It is important to keep your beacon up on the tank at all times. Remember that with Protector of the Innocent, you know longer particularly benefit from putting it on yourself. Something to note about Beacon, with the latest hotfixes, you can no longer get HoPo from Tower of Radiance by using Holy Light on your Beacon, it will only benefit and grant charges from Divine Light of Flash of Light (I’m sure I will talk about that in depth at some point).
• Deep Corruptors…the Faceless ones…they have an ability that will pick the group up and then let them fall. At that point they proceed to do a stomp-like AOE sending damage across the party. This is a good pull to make sure you have HoPo charges for Light of Dawn. You can escape further damage by exiting the area of melee and healing everyone back up. Remember as a holy paladin, you can benefit by saving yourself to heal last because of Protector of the Innocent.
• Watch for people standing in the bad!
• During the shaman fight, there is a period in transition between phase 1 and 2 where a party member will be taken over. They are expected to take damage as the party members must attack them but don’t fret, they will pop back up somewhere near full health after their stint as an octopus puppet is over.
• The Neputlon event is very easy to heal, the damage isn’t massive that randomly throwing out Flash of Light across the party will keep everyone exactly where they need to be. There may be some line of sight issues, I’m not entirely sure but its a round room so be sure to place appropriately if you want to Light of Dawn, but that isn’t too necessary given the small increments of damage that occur. In the ending phase, there is a constant damage AOE but everyone has massive health pools and you will have massive through put!
• On the way to the Neptulon event there is a small gauntlet of these little puple elemental voidwalker things. It is very easy to grab healing aggro and for a while I didn’t realize it was necessary to run through, but it can be a little difficult to heal if the tank isn’t doing a heads up job and noting where all the mobs are targeting. I lost a clothie here once. The damage can be minimal, moderate, or extreme. Be sure to note the level of expertise in your tank (not the stat…the smarts) and be prepared! Based on that Light of Dawn, Holy Shock, and Flash of Light are strong favorites for fast healing if the adds get out of control.

Holy Paladin Gear:

Prime/Optimal (Normal iLvl 308):

• Abalone Plate Armor (from Neptulon): +319 Stamina +212 Intellect +142 Spirit +142 Mastery
• Harp Shell Pauldrons (from Ulthok): +237 Stamina +158 Intellect +105 Spirit +105 Haste
• Periwinkle Cloak (from Lady Naz’jar): +177 Stamina +118 Intellect +79 Haste +79 Mastery
• Pipefish Cord (from Neptulon): +177 Stamina +118 Intellect +65 Crit +89 Mastery

Suboptimal/General Upgrade:

• Anthia’s Ring (from the Mindbender): +177 Stamina +118 Intellect +65 Hit +89 Mastery
• Aurelian Mitre (from Lady Naz’jar): Cloth +319 Stamina +212 Intellect +124 Spirit +152 Mastery
• Bioluminescent Lamp (from Neptulon): Off-Hand +177 Stamina+118 Intellect +85 Spirit +69 Crit
• Chromis Chestpiece (from Ulthok): Mail +319 Stamina +212 Intellect +142 Spirit +142 Mastery
• Decapod Slippers (from the Mindbender): Leather +237 Stamina+158 Intellect +80 Spirit +120 Crit
• Sea Star (Trinket from Neptulon): +200 Spirit with Spell Power use

Remember that there is a plate specialization that increases highest stat (Intellect) by 5% and the inclusion of the sub-optimal list in in no means promoting their use nor am I telling you to get it, just putting it out there for the sake of information!

Also, for those of you, like myself, who may be questing as Ret, there are some amazing drops that come from here. I have had the fortune of rolling need off-spec against other people who also want off-spec ((PS. Warrior and Paladin Tanks….you don’t NEED that two handed weapon…you has shield like I does!)).

Retribution Gear:

• Anomuran Helm (from the Mindbender): +212 Strength +319 Stamina +142 Crit +142 Mastery
• Conch of the Thundering Waves (Relic from the Mindbender): +67 Strength +100 Stamina 1 Socket +46 Hit +42 Crit
• Eagle Ray Cloak (from Ulthok): +118 Strength +177 Stamina +79 Haste +79 Mastery
• Might of the Ocean (trinket from Neptulon): +200 Hit with STR use
• Nautilus Ring (from Neptulon): +118 Agility +177 Stamina +79 Crit +79 Haster
• Whitefin Axe (from Neptulon): +212 Strength +319 Stamina +152 Crit +124 Haste

Overall, the instance is enjoyable and has some interesting mechanics as a whole. The quests are readily available and do not require you to have quested in the zone of Vashj’ir. At this moment, my character sheet reports that my iLvl (in either set?) is 299. Upon understanding the instance, I haven’t lost anyone since but my healing gloves are on and Holy Radiance is mine!

Be on the look-out for more healadin goodness and remember that you must discover all instance entrances before you can be put into them!

4.0 [Holy] Talents Revisted

This past Tuesday 4.0.3a went live and the world experienced a Cataclysm of epic proportions, changing and scarring the face of Azeroth forever. What also occurred at the same time as the sundering of the world was a re-balancing of healing class including holy paladins. As a result, our talents were reset regardless of our specialization. In light of the changes, I will be taking a look an updated talent builds and include gylph changes as well as patch changes.

There have been some changes sense the original launch that I have analyzed and tested and decided a better route. Let’s start off by taking a look at a talent build:

Holy Tier 1: 2/3 Protector of the Innocent – 3/3 Judgements of the Pure

Holy Tier 2: 3/3 Clarity of Purpose – 2/2 Last Word

Holy Tier 3: 1/1 Divine Favor – 2/2 Infusion of Light – 2/2 Daybreak

Holy Tier 4:  2/2 Enlightened Judgements  – 1/1 Beacon of Light – 3/3 Speed of Light – 1/1 Sacred Cleansing

Holy Tier 5: 3/3 Conviction – 2/2 Paragon of Virtue

Holy Tier 6: 3/3 Tower of Radiance

Holy Tier 7: 1/1 Light of Dawn

Protection Tier 1: 3/3 Divinity

Retribution Tier 1: 2/3 Crusade

Since the original build with the new mechanics, I have worked with Eternal Glory (Prot Tier 1) and decided that at our current point level, the proc chance is not high enough to deduct a point from Crusade and the boost to healing for Holy Shock. Also, with the deficit in our Judgement distances I have still opted for 2/2 in Enlightened Judgements instead of Aura mastery for distance utility. I am not excluding the base of utility of Aura Mastery by any means.

This build is specifically designed for PVE healing and does not take into consideration any leveling talents that may be beneficial or PVP focus points like Blessed Life. This build emphasizes strong end-game healing with a few debatable and optional talents including Aura Mastery, Enlightened Judgements, Paragon of Virtue, and Eternal Glory.

What 4.0.3a brings to spells…

Beacon of Light now lasts 5 minutes, up from 60 seconds.

This change is for the greater good as it brings along a multitude of effects. Not only does it remove the extra GCD every 1-1.5 minutes but it also reduces the amount of mana that is used to refresh this. The mana cost at this spell is 6% base mana. At an approximate 3000 base mana, that is 180 mana, so over the course of 5 minutes (the current duration) we save 720 mana (given an unglyphed duration). These numbers may not be significant given our 40k+ mana pools but I have not looked at base mana amounts in a while either and we could see these numbers be much more drastic if they were in the Level 85 bracket.

Holy Radiance now has reduced effectiveness on targets over 8 yards away from the paladin.

Why this is implemented into a pre-Cataclysm patch I will never understand given that this spell is beyond our capabilities until we reach Level 83. However, when we received direct healing spell boosts, we were given the compromise that this spell would be rebalanced to reflect those changes and this is the manner in which the mechanics were implemented.

Holy Radiance now has reduced effectiveness on targets over 8 yards away from the paladin.

I have never considered this to be a PVE talent even though I did hear of some consistent procs with this in 5-Mans, I cannot vouch for its viability in raid settings prior to this change; since this change it is not optimal or viable for end-game PVE though it could be taken into consideration for leveling.

lluminated Healing absorb shield now absorbs 10% of the total amount healed, up from 8%. Each point of Mastery increases the effect by an additional 1.25%, up from 1%.

Whoa baby! It is great to see a boost to our mastery. It is reported that WoL (WorldofLogs) does not reflect this but I can neither confirm or deny but Recount meters have been updated to take this into consideration. With this boost we should see a boost in absorbs and stands to make mastery a little more appealing. Also as reported in the original PTR build (13221) the duration of this has been increased to 8 seconds.

Light of dawn has been redesigned. It no longer has an enforced cooldown, now costs Holy Power instead of mana, and scale in direct proportion to the amount of Holy Power used. In addition it now heals the 5 most injured group targets (including self) in a 30-yard frontal cone.

This is not a nerf. Contrary to my first observations of this, I have discovered that this is a smart heal and while you still do not need a target, you must direct yourself in the appropriate direction if you expect to heal anyone.

Protector of the Innocent no longer triggers from self-heals.

This is really neither good nor bad. It really shouldn’t effect the situation if you are already healing yourself…right?

Crusade now also has a proc on kill to increase the healing done by the paladin’s next Holy Light by 100/200/300% for 15 seconds, in addition to its current effects.

Given the fact that we are looking at PVE end-game healing at the moment, this change doesn’t have any direct effects for by the time we reach the kill, we are not direly pressed to get heals off in most cases. There could be some cases, i.e. Frozen Orbs linger after Torovon, when it could be helpful but this is primarily a leveling change or ret soloing change.

Implemented Glyph Changes

I will do a full glyph analysis after Cataclysm’s release as I expect to see some more changes, I know of one (Lay on Hands) that Wowhead does not show its implementation yet. So I will talk about the ones that are directly effected by this patch and its rebalancing.

Glyph of Beacon of Light (Major)

In my honest opinion, the changes to Beacon of Light (the 5 minute duration) opens up another slot for us to chose another glyph. Perhaps the new and improved Glyph of Light of Dawn I will talk about in a minute. But as far as this glyph goes, I don’t see the necessity in saving 6% base mana on something I am only going to cast every 5 minutes. We may not even see some fights last that long and what would eliminate the utility of this glyph.

Glyph of Light of Dawn (Major)

This is very similar to the Glyph of Circle of Healing that priests have always had. This can really up the utility of our end tree talent as long as we can maximize the spell’s conal direction factor. I strongly recommend replacing Glyph of Beacon of Light with this more functional glyph.

So there you have it, the analysis of the reset specs and latest glyph changes. I hope that when you are trying to make your way through the scary new world, at least the mechanics and informational aspects don’t have to be so scary.

Remember that you can always ask questions or if you want clarifcations you can leave comments and/or email me at tarinae @ gmail [dot] com.

Disclaimer: Aside from 6%, numbers used for Beacon’s mana use are not actual, only representational.

The ligh…where’d it go?

I haven’t been covering the latest changes for Cataclysm builds lately because the changes have been so minute if they really even effect us at all. But this morning, MMO Reports that PTR patch for 4.03a (read: The Shattering) has one signifcant factor I felt was extremely important to relay to everyone.

Holy Shock base healing reduced by 33%, from [ 3943 – 4272 ] to [ 2628 – 2847 ]

This change is seen in build 13316 and is in conjunction with the change to Holy Radiance in 13277. The change to Holy Radiance was expected given the boosts to direct heals, and it makes sense that the further away from me, the less it works. This however, takes our current staple heal (Hello, HoPo!) and cuts its effectiveness in half.

When most of us were beginning to see that light of the tunnel and dig ourselves out of the mess, they do this.

We will see where this goes; only time can tell.

A (Somewhat) Final Statement

I’ll admit to ranting, raving, and QQing. I’ll admit to whining that healadins are broken. I’ll admit to struggling. But I can’t admit that I’m not trying because I am, I love healing and yes, I am trying very hard to get it down. I think I have pin-pointed what it is that makes this so complex at the moment. But before I get into it, and the problems I still face, I want to share an anecdote with you.

The Setting: VOA 25

I have thought long and hard about a way to write this without getting mad again. Without getting insulted; but, it is difficult to tell you that I was told I didn’t know how to do my job. First there were 2 things wrong that weren’t healing based, that all the healing in the world couldn’t fix. DPS & tanks. The DPS was not only significantly lower than tank dps, but they didn’t switch to orbs, which means there was never a break from the orbs. The tanks, didn’t know how to taunt properly off one another, meaning their white-out stacks got extrememly high and the fight was lasting too long. No one called them out, no one said “Fix it tanks.” What did they say? “FFS HEALS!” or “WTF NO HEALS!?” but one that really pissed me off, (ps. I feel the anger in my belly right now) was “Well, apparently we need new healers.”

I was NOT the only that defended the healing but I was the only paladin healer. The only tank healer. And when the raid began to fall apart, and the good priest healer who stood up against the hate left, and they fat assed Emalon trash, I left. I had had enough…until…

I see the raid leader in trade chat LFM. His pitch went something like blah blah tanks blah blah 5k and healers that actually know what they’re doing. And dammit if that didn’t break me. You want to know why? Because for once, FOR ONCE, since this stupid patch has dropped, I was feeling confident, I was doing a good job and he needed to point his blame at someone else. I decided that I would promptly point out that his healers HAD been doing what they were supposed to and not to blame them. At which point he promptly said I cared way to much about healing numbers and was busy healing around the raid and I didn’t do my job.  After being backed up in trade, reaffirming to myself I was correct, I promptly battled him (ps. I should have left it alone but I was mad). Eventually, it ended with him telling me I didn’t know how to do my job.

But let me retort that I absolutely healed my ass off on those dim-witted tanks who couldn’t figure out what to do (ps. This is not hate against all tanks) and I attest that I felt at the time I had been doing a good job. I don’t care about the meters. Does it upset me that I had fallen so far? Sure. BUT, it was absolutely pleasent surprise to see that I had made it back up in that run to 2nd place (we wiped before and I was in fact near the bottom)  so my confidence was not unwarranted. I healed the two tanks and myself (Protector of the Innocent is massive) but the two other people I holy shocked from death weren’t reflected, and there were only two (neither of which caused a tank to die) and one person happened to be the guy bitching at me.

While OBVIOUSLY, there were other factors at play, if he really wanted to blame it on heals (it boils down further to point at his raid leading skills) I suppose he has something in his pocket (but he should have asked given the extent of changes).

I had been so confident, but as all good trolls (or D-bags) can do, he had me doubting…

So, after feeling so incredibly desolate, I read an article that Kurn wrote about her struggles. And so I asked her if she had difficulty two tank healing, hoping beyond all that I am not just a fail whale, this is what she had to say:

We can no longer, IMHO, heal two targets reliably without help. It isn’t always a lot of help that we need, but we can’t solo it.

It is difficult for a paladin to be the only tank healer when there is mass damage, Beacon of Light is NOT what it used to be. I had two healed (me on tanks) 5/12 pre-patch, but I can’t get VOA? While the utility of Beacon of Light certainly plays a part in our tank healing, I think I have it finely pinpointed a major factor.

Our problem is “Reactiveness“.

Is that a real world? No, probably not, but it is for right now.

In the paladin healing right now we are so REactive to procs and cooldowns, that it effects more of our healing choices than actual thought. The general gist is:

• Divine Light is a good use for Speed of Light
• Infusion of Light means you need to do Holy Light
• Holy Shock is up!
• 3 HoPo time to WoG!
• Oh, hey Daybreak!
• HOLY FLASHLIGHT BATMAN, don’t forget Light of Dawn.
• Even the oh SH*T button is on a CD. Hello Lay on Hands (but that is nothing new)

It isn’t reactive to the damage, it isn’t PROactive for damage, it is about procs and cooldowns all the way around.

It seems that the standard rotation has become: HS – DL/HL -HL – HL/FoL – WoG but when you think about it, it would take 3 of these sequences (~18 seconds @ 6 sec CD) to get 3 HoPo for WoG if you are fully utilizing beacon and NOT healing your beacon target. If you use this as a one tank heal, you could pop this rotation ever 6 seconds but lose the utility of Beacon. That is the ultimate problem.A problem each of us have to adapt to and all the leads (raid, healing, guild, etc.) need to acknowledge.

Are we broken? No. But we are missing (at least at 80) the ability to fill negative spaces and be proactive.

I haven’t been in a raid since then. Maybe I lost my mojo or my confidence. I can admit that I am not the best holy paladin, but I am still good at what I do and I will keep at it.

This will be the last rantish type post about the holy paladin stuff. I hope to have viable information on HOW to be successful in the somewhat near future but I feel a little more confident that by knowing what the problem is, I can work to fix it.

And as a last thought, to all the raid leaders, please be aware of the healing status and strengths of all the classes that are available for your raid. As a raid leader, you should have knowledge about all situations and instances so that you can prepare your raid accordingly. What if you were banking on mage CC and you didn’t know they lost Polymorph (ps. that is hypothetical)? This is the same situation in essence.

PS. Thank you to my guild mates who stood up for me in trade chat and for the other healers who had my back.

Cataclysm: Build 13221

Right now, my outlook on this whole thing is pretty pessimistic, the admittance that “our strengths” aren’t available at Level 80 has left me hopeless. But, in the end, Cataclysm is barely over a month away and the changes that are coming with this build are eye-popping, hope generating, amazing. So let’s give this blog some good overtones and take a look!

• Holy Radiance‘s effectiveness now diminish on targets farther than x yards away.
• Divine Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 8538-9512 to 11100-12366
• Flash of Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 5313-5961 to 6907-7750.
• Holy Shock base healing has been increased by 30%. From 3033-3285 to 3943-4271.
• Holy Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 3202-3567 to 4162-4637.
• Beacon of Light now lasts 5 min, up from 1 min.
• Mastery: Illuminated Healing now absorbs 10% of the amount healed, up from 8%. Now lasts 8 sec, up from 6 sec. Each point of mastery increases the absorb amount by an additional 1.25%, up from 1%.
• Lay on Hands no longer restores mana.
• Holy Wrath now scales from 61% of SpellPower, up from 30%. Base damage reduced by 22%, from 3122 to 2435.
• Exorcism now scales from 34.4% of SpellPower or AP, up from 15%. Base damage increased by 15% from 2343 to 2741.

HOLY COCOBONGOS FLASHLIGHT BATMAN! Those caps are a moment of squee for the sheer look at those base numbers. This brings the total buff to over 40% for most of the healing spells. I believe Word of Glory was included in the hotfix but not listed with the builds.

The change to Beacon of Light, as one of my readers, Thoger, states will make the glyph obsolete. You mean to tell me, after two years I get this glyph and it is worthless! Darn. But I like the change, it isn’t a GCD wasted every 1-1.5 (depending on glyphs). What does the new glyph do?

So, at a 5-minute duration, the expense of mana shouldn’t be a concern a given a genuine low mana cost at 6% base mana. This change can be easily handled if you recall my recent glyph analysis and see the recommendation that Glyph of Cleansing can be beneficial in it’s reduced mana cost; the mana cost for Cleanse is 14% base mana, more than double that of a 5-minute Beacon.

The change to Lay on Hands means that it can no longer be used as a form of Innervate as I have heard of it being used. This also means that the glyph has been changed. In live, it stands to return us with as much mana as it returns to the target. The new updated glyph? Simply returns 10% mana to us when cast. That is equal to the base return of Divine Plea, without the healing reduction, but with an 8-11 minute CD.

And as if Mastery wasn’t good already, the increase the amount absorbed by 2% and every point of mastery another .25! And the duration! I would like to point out that the duration of the buff as it stood was the CD of HS so by the time it would fall off, we could get another buff on the target, but this way, there will be some overlap with casting times and other situationals. This is a good time to remind you that to gain a point of mastery rating (1.25% increased absorption) you have to have ~46 Mastery Points.

And finally, the changes to the damaging spells don’t necessarily effect us, but if you foresee yourself leveling as Holy, this is a nice buff to the drab and long-winded holy “DPS” rotation for leveling.

Could all of this mean…that we aren’t broken at 85? Only time shall tell since I am not a beta participant, but we shall see in the end!

And as always, it is important to credit the sources used, so you can find the full details for all classes and specs with this build at MMO-Champion, but when clicking that link, please be aware that it may contain spoilers as there are some very vivid images as you click. We’ve seen the release of the Cataclysm Launcher, and video and image coverage of the Login screen are available as well as dance information, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!

PS. Stay turned for a post, deeply explaining my horrible amount of pessimism.

PPS. Yes, my Light of Dawn is macro’d to /s Holy Flashlight, Batman!

The Bottom of the Barrel

The bottom of the chart is more like it…

I know that judging how good (or bad) of a healer you are is inaccurate, there is much more too it than that, but for now we’re going to accept it as a factor of measurement and admit that when you see yourself fall from #1 to #4 it is disheartening. I will try my best not to QQ, whine, bitch, moan or rant, but I’m upset. I’m sad. I’m mournful. Let me tell you why.

After the patch, I went to run with my normal ICC25 group. While it is essentially a PuG, many of the core raiders are the same and the raider leader does it at a set time. The history to this group is that I got my first Rotface kill, 1-4+Fester were on “farm” status, and our first and only attempt at the Princes had them at ~2% before a wipe. I enjoy the casualness of this group, the structure, not so much the loot rules but I handle it, and I really love the way they handled the ball of WayToFail that was that Saturday (ps. Everyone was a little fail).

Now it could have been that it was still too new to me; that I didn’t know the full capacity and capability of each spell, or it could be that my muscle memory had me casting wrong spells. Either way, it is supposed to be getting better but I still feel unconfident, still find myself back when I first started healing…PETRIFIED.

Tank healing to me isn’t a niche. It is an honor. It is something that I worked my ass off to achieve and be good at. I had to learn the damage outputs to know how to be PROACTIVE, being a reactive tank healer probably means your tank is dead. It was never something I took lightly, and was never something that I took for granted. I know, without a doubt, that pre-patch, druids could tank heal, shamans could tank heal…I’ve seen it. It has happened. Our Beacon was over-powered and we could heal two tanks at the same time, meaning that it probably limited us to our options of tank healing, but wise up, I’ve raid healed as a paladin. It took tweaks to the spec and trinket but I did it. Yet why is it NOW, I don’t feel I can raid heal…and I don’t feel I can tank heal.

I’ve tried a couple “rotations” because now a rotation is something we have to have when we’re dependant on cooldowns or long cast times or procs. I can’t tell you what I feel is the best but I can tell you the one I keep coming back to.

(Beacon Target) HS+HL(B)+HL(B)+WoG

Depending on how much HP I have, if a Daybreak procs, I may cast WoG before, in between or after to maximize HP.

What does this rotation do? Well for one, and my main problem with it, is that is completely removes the utility of Beacon of Light. Yes, previously, I Beaconed my tank so that no matter who I may have needed to spot heal, my tank was taken care of with 30k heals or whatnot. That was my style but I was always adaptable. But I struggle now. The ways in which a holy paladin can generate holy power is ridiculous. Holy Shock grants 1 charge…..if you took Tower of Radiance, healing your beacon grants 1 charge per heal (but again removing its utility)…and if you took Blessed Life and take direct damage, you generate holy power.

So we can choose to have 1 charge/6 secs or remove the utility of one of our staple abilities?

Did you know that Ret gets to talent the option for ANY of their attacks, instead of just Crusader Strike (ps. We can dps to generate as holy!! -.-) to generate a charge, even the ones that use charges. Tell me, why can’t we have a talent like that?

When confronted about this situation regarding the ability to heal at this level, Blizzard has increased our output for the 5 direct healing spells twice. First they receieved 10% buffs in Build 13536 and then again in a hotfix. That is great, it helps our output, and yes, I have noticed higher numbers, and no I haven’t been to ICC, but it doesn’t change the lack of utility. Our raid utility relies on things like Light of Dawn, WoG, and HS. Our tank utility relies of things like Beacon, Divine or Holy Light (or even Flash of Light). Our mana depends on things like HL, HS, WoG. Things like LoD, WoG, HS rely on cooldowns or procs. Our HP depends on things like HS and Beacon.

Too much depends on too many OTHER things. I am not sure of another class that relies SO heavily on procs and cooldowns. I know priests have cooldowns and bubbles but they have ways to conteract the negative time with other abilities.

When it boils down to it, Blizzard admits, in a sense, that at Level 80 (end-game raiding atm), healadins are broken…

Unfortunately, many of these strengths don’t show up at 80. Missing Holy Radiance is huge. Mana isn’t much of a problem on live today…

The full source of the statement on the past, present, and future of healadins is given by Ghostcrawler in response to outcry and demand for design details.

What does that say about the next two months of holy paladins?

But back to my statement about healing ICC25, there were 3 of us (holy paladins I mean) and a whole slew of 4 other types of healers including priests and druids…and we wiped on Festergut. Over and over we wiped. Once wasn’t an issue of tank healing, rather raid healing when a whole group of ranged outside died and he enraged. Once may have not been the fault of anyone but the dudes with the spores and the fact that they didn’t get the buff. Maybe the other times were all healing related when the tank died. That the missing second of a Holy Shock cooldown could have saved it all? Ghostcrawler says:

We haven’t seen too much evidence yet that paladins are much poorer tank healers than other classes, though I understand many of you feel that to be the case. If we do decide Holy can’t competitively tank heal any longer, then we will buff them. This is tricky though.

And right now, I just believe this to be the case. Maybe everyone doesn’t agree with me. I am not asking them to, but for once, this is simply opinionated. This is a lament.

The effect (or affect, I don’t know right now!) that 4.0.1 has had on raiding for healadins, in my eyes, has been pretty destructive. Healing 5-Mans is virtually unbothered, minus the new “rotation” type of healing. And for PVP, these mechanics are rocking socks. I’ve contemplated waiting until 85 to continue PVE end-game healing, but I can’t. I want to do it now, healing is who Tarinae is, being a healadin is something I enjoy.

So even though I am unconfident and depressed and struggling for buttons and keybindings and cooldowns, I will preserver and come out…back on top.

Or so I hope.

4.0.1: Glyph Analysis

This has been updated for 4.0.3a on 12/11/10.

I’ve done a glyph analysis  before, I even re-vamped it with updated information. But now, here I am starting from scratch. Our system of glyphs is new, the levels we get glyphs are new, and some of our glyphs don’t exist in place of glyphs that are, again, new. I’ll be taking a look at the new system as well as going through each glyph that may be beneficial to a holy paladin.

Glyph System

With 4.0 came a new type of glyph, Prime; with the addition, glyphs now exist with three tiers: minor, major, prime.

Prime – Prime glyphs will typically provide direct increases to damage or healing throughput. Examples of prime glyphs include Glyph of Howling Blast, which will cause the death knight ability Howling Blast to infect targets with Frost Fever, and Glyph of Insect Swarm, which increases the damage of druid’s Insect Swarm ability by 30%.

Major – Major glyphs will typically augment spells and abilities to offer additional utility. Examples of major glyphs include Glyph of Silencing Shot, which will cause a hunter to instantly gain 10 focus when successfully silencing an enemy’s spell cast, and Glyph of Ice Block, which will reset the cooldown on Frost Nova every time a mage uses Ice Block.

Minor – Minor glyphs will typically provide players with additional convenience or cosmetic changes. Examples of minor glyphs include Glyph of Righteousness which will reduce the mana cost of Seal of Righteousness for paladins by 50%, and Glyph of Levitate which will remove the reagent requirement for a priest’s Levitate spell. – Blue Post

As mentioned we learn glyphs at a different level, making some occurences that were once easy, much difficult (i.e. low-level bear tanking). Previously, we learned our first glyph at level 15; now, we learn our glyphs in a trifecta of 1 each prime, major, and minor. We learn one of each tier at levels 25, 50, and 75.

Glyphs also work differently. Previously, we were able to have the glyph and insert it in to the slot, using the glyph and it was gone. Now, by using a glyph, we permanently learn the ability and are able to switch our choices without the cost of anything more than Vanishing Powder (bought at Inscription vendors).

At this time, it is important for those reading not of the holy paladin class, to mention that some of the mage glyphs are incorrectly implemented as major glyphs, when they are intended to be prime. This does not seem to be an issue for any other class. To everyone else, your choices just suck, I guess.

Holy Paladin Glyphs (Behind the Cut!)

4.0.1: The Mindset

You can have the gear, you can have the spec, but with it all, you have nothing if you don’t have the mindset to heal in this patch. Adapting your previous healadin frame of mind is what surviving 4.0.1 is all about.

In a span of less than 24 hours, everything you ever knew about paladin healing changed. We’ve got buttons to push, spells that do the same thing at different speeds and costs, fun spell effects (okay, just one of these), and they even took the bubble hearth away.

So how do we fix this?

First, you have to acknowledge that there is no more Holy Light/Flash of Light spec. Neither one of these spells are what you want to find yourself spamming. Holy Light has been whacked for more than half of what it was capable of in Wrath and Flash of Light, while still decent in output, is horrible in the mana department. What may or may not have been a staple in your previous rotations, Holy Shock is now the go to, the use every CD, the important heal. The only way to get into the frame of mind is for you to work on it. I can’t hypnotize you, I can’t say anything that will make it all better, I can only tell you I am here too and hand you a tissue as I weep for my place on top of the healing charts.

Fix your keybindings, macros, add-ons, whatever it is you use, fix it. If you find yourself FoL spamming and drained of that precious blue bar, or even the yellow runic bar!, move it, re-bind it. Whether you are trying to cast the wrong spell or the right spell, you may find your fingers moving to their old beat so it can help to utilize this when training yourself to use these new spells.

Don’t shy away from add-ons. I am a big supporter of not using add-ons. But if you need help watching for HS every CD, find an add-on to help. If you need a Beacon Timer because you’re not solely on tanks, find one.

Be familiar with the base output of each spell against its mana cost. This is a good thing to know before going in blind to a heroic or raid. Train yourself to know how much healing really comes from HS/WoG or Divine Light and Flash of Light. And don’t forget Light of Dawn. Its capability to hit that many people for a moderate amount is something you don’t want to forget. When you are familiar and comfortable with what each spell is capable of YOU ARE CONFIDENT! And that is the key factor in this whole situation.

Right now, I haven’t seen a person use the same spec as someone else. Granted, I haven’t inspected every healadin blogger nor every healadin on my server, but every single one of us…we’re just trying to find our groove…our place in the world now. The Holy build has access to a lot of utility spells but without all of our talent points available, we have to find what works best now as we adapt and in time, we will grow to that cookie cutter spec, someday we may have it, maybe we won’t.

But for now,  don’t give up. Don’t think that crazy mage dps (*cough*) is looking better and better, don’t think that ret has more fun, don’t think these things! They only hurt the frame of mind you’re trying to fix. It isn’t a same spell spamfest (though it might be a spamfest of sorts, this is yet to be determined), it takes thought and awareness!

Good luck, healadins friends.