Cataclysm Holy Paladin Guide

[Chamenas]

The pally in the Omnitron video topped them :P

[Mr.Winkle]

Started to get the feel a little bit more for my holy pally last night. 2/2 in Eternal Glory is worth its weight in gold, nothing better than free WoG. Spammed FoL a lot last night and was able to remain competitive with the other healers. Although i'm struggling to output anywhere near the HPS i used too.

I found Light of Dawn to be evry good situationally, but you have to be prepared for the incoming damage to use it effectively. I managed to get 25k healing out of it on decimate in ICC. Also good on festergut.

[Soan]

The pally in the Omnitron video topped them :P

That's at 85 though.

[Chamenas]

That's at 85 though.

Which is what things are balanced for.

And I'm not taking Eternal Glory right now, but I played around with the Calc and it is included in my 85 talent build.

[yawn.3x]

Ehh, paladins shouldn't be at the bottom. if anything it should be a druid, MAYBE a shaman. dont even try to compete with Priests ATM. They'll dominate you. We just downed HM25-man Professor Putricide today! =). managed to get top in healing on that fight, but Priests generally always have the edge on me. This one priest in my guild (pre-patch) could never come close to me, then again only a resto druid could, but regardless, both Priests usually have an edge on me now with the new patch.

And yes, with some extra spirit I was able to maintain FoL without going oom. They should change Divine plea to have no reduced effect on healing though. Druids have an innervate that gives them more mana then our Divine plea back, and they dont have any debuff from using it! not to mention Glyphed its even better! only other move we get is LayonHands which is an 8min cooldown! grr!

And yes Eternal Glory is WELL worth the 2 points. Can't get enough of it. "12k heal, +3 holy power, 12k heal, +3 holy power, 12k heal, +3 holy power, Holy shock-crit, Holy Light, Daybreak, Holy shock, Holy shock, 12k heal, +3 holy power, 12k heal +3holy power." ahhahah love it!!!! I feel so roguelike

[Chamenas]

Just remember that it's not always an extra WoG which is the major issue with it. But healers can deal with RNG a bit better than Tanks can. It's not like someone will generally die if the extra WoG doesn't proc. What it really is is a tool to save mana more than anything else, which I'm all for, but I don't need it yet. I'll pick it up in Cata.

[Chamenas]

Putting up the Gameplay video. It will need some time to fully process.



Here's a Transcript:

Hello, this is Lulia showing you some brief gameplay with the changes to Holy Paladins in 4.0.1. I apologize, this is not a raid, however, much of the premise is the same. In a raid, however, you would resort to using more Flash of Lights and Divine Lights for tank heals and heavy damage, reserving Holy Light for “quieter” periods in a fight.


I've made some mistakes, I do not admit to being perfect, but I will try to explain them as we go along.


First you will see me healing directly on the Beacon target quite often. This is due to the extra Holy Power generation from Tower of Radiance, which rewards me for healing my beaconed target by giving extra Holy Power. With the reduced Beacon, the only time you don't want to use a heal on your Beaconed target is when someone else definitely needs a heal, in which case you might spare a Holy Shock or Word of Glory. If both are unavailable you can use a Flash of Light, Holy Light or Divine Light depending on what's needed, but, you really want to reserve those spells mostly for your Beacon target.


The glowing golden edges you see currently are Blizzard's built in aura display for Daybreak, which gives you a “free” Holy Shock by making your next Holy Shock not trigger a cooldown. You don't want to waste this proc by not using Holy Shock, so be sure to find a place to fire one off when it's up.


Generally speaking, unless you need the Holy Power, you don't want to fire off multiple Holy Shocks simultaneously. Rather, use your first Holy Shock, then use up its Infusion or Speed of Light proc and then fire off your second Holy Shock.


As you can see, I get into a rough patch here. We have DPS standing in ice and the tank taking a lot of damage. I'll be healing the tank a lot less in a direct sense, I also waste some potential Word of Glories. It's important to remain cool and level-headed in these situations, since simply spamming is not efficient like it once was.

That's all I've got for this Gameplay video. Changes in Cataclysm will once again change how we heal. And there are definitely some patch changes which may make things in this guide irrelevant in future patches. However, going forward, Holy Paladin healing looks fine. It's not nerfed. So simply keep aware of the changes and make adjustments as needed. Thank you and good-bye.

[Mr.Winkle]

There's the start of an interesting discussion about ToR going on over at EJ.

The basic premise being that speccing/using ToR might actually lead to an HPS/HPM loss.

The basic argument being that whenever your healing the beacon target directly you're losing out on at least a 1/3 of your potential healing. Furthermore, although healing your beacon generates HP for WoG the mana saved yourself is offset by the mana lost by your other raid healers because they're having to pick up the healing lost via beacon.

It's an interesting argument and re-enforces my original thoughts that ToR and Beacon seem very much at odds with one another.

[Chamenas]

They do, and I've seen part of the discussion. It's an interesting one, but one which I don't think will get much momentum in changing things unless Beacon itself changes. With the way it is currently, you'll need to heal your Beacon target if they're taking any amount of notable damage. But if someone else is taking damage, you should be healing them anyways. Letting other people take damage and not healing them is refusing to do your job as a healer. In a raid setting, healers will have to be more coordinated about who's got who.

Remember that healing is not about HPS/HPM. It should never have been about those things. The only reason it ever was was because of how WotLK panned out for healing. Going forward it will be less about those things, I imagine. As long as people aren't dying and encounters are going down, it doesn't matter what your HPS and HPM are, unless they're drastically lower than everyone else (meaning you didn't contribute). What's far more important will be how effective your mana conservation is.

[Chamenas]

For one of my shorter videos, this one is taking an ungodly long time to process. If it's not processed in an hour I'm going to reupload it.

[Chamenas]

Had to delete and re-upload, but it's up now.

[Namino]

Have any other paladins found it to be an issue healing tanks for H LK? I am finding myself spamming DL a lot to make up for the incoming tank damage and pretty much oom'ing at a phase transition.

[Chamenas]

Are you using HS on CD and using WoG after every 2-3 DLs (2 if you got a Holy Shock in there). That's how you maximize your mana efficiency in the new setup, by using those spells. The new Divine Plea is fairly nerfed, but you should still be as active about it as before with the new setup, aka use it as soon as it would start making a difference (off-setting it with a CD) and use it on CD from there-on out as long as you can offset it and it wont kill someone to use it with its offset power.

[Mr.Winkle]

Remember that healing is not about HPS/HPM. It should never have been about those things. The only reason it ever was was because of how WotLK panned out for healing. Going forward it will be less about those things, I imagine. As long as people aren't dying and encounters are going down, it doesn't matter what your HPS and HPM are, unless they're drastically lower than everyone else (meaning you didn't contribute). What's far more important will be how effective your mana conservation is.

Surely there's going to be a lot of focus on HPM now? Isn't that Blizzards whole intent in Cata? If I can save mana raid wide by not healing by Beacon then that's going to be the preferred healing method.

Of course if bosses are dying but raiders aren't then you're less concerned about HPS/HPM but doubt/hope that won't be the case at the release of a new expansion. And I'm not talking about personal HPS/HPM, rather maximising the HPM of all healers in a raid.

[Chamenas]

Surely there's going to be a lot of focus on HPM now?

Of course if bosses are dying but raiders aren't then you're less concerned about HPS/HPM but doubt/hope that won't be the case at the release of a new expansion.

This is where I disagree

Both of those statements try to assert that they are the ultimate goal of a healer, but only one of them can be true. Either the healer is trying to maximize their HPM or they're trying to down the boss without people dying.

Don't get me wrong, the concepts aren't mutually exclusive. However, one is a consequence of the other and only one of them is the true goal of a healer.

The goal of a healer is to keep raid members alive while they down a boss. If a DPS or Tank is doing things inefficiently because they're not being healed properly, that's the healers fault. If the a DPS or Tank dies because they weren't getting proper heals, that's the healer's fault, etc...

However, such a goal is a rather intangible concept for measurement. People not dying is rather easy to see. However, people doing things inefficiently to compensate for poor heals if often difficult to see because other healers might make up the difference, or the DPS or Tanks might become so used to an inefficient style that they don't even realize it could be better if the healing on them was better. Thus we turn to metrics of HPS and HPM.

HPM and HPS are measurements which allow us to gauge whether or not what we're doing is effective, but they are not our goal. Achieving the best possible HPS or HPM will often solve our problems, but it's not the only thing to be considered in the equation. In fact, what might be best for HPS or HPM might be horribly inefficient for mana. Thus we need to strike a balance between mana efficiency and HPS/HPM. We need enough HPS/HPM to keep people alive through the "worst" conditions while having enough mana efficiency that we don't run out of mana before the fight is over.

In the context of my statement, which was a reply to your post about the Beacon of Light discussion, my point was that min/maxers are far too worried about what makes the best showing on the meters and far less worried about what is needed in order to do your part for the raid. Theorycrafting is certainly viable for healing, and we can learn a lot by crunching the numbers, but it's not as cut-and-dry as DPS is.

An effective healer keeps people alive and not worrying about staying alive (aside from when they have to watch for certain mechanics such as "not standing in fire"). This means they are working well with their team of healers. As far as Beacon is concerned, this means that the most efficient use of your heals if no one is taking damage but the tank is to heal the Beacon target, since it means you're A) Directing heals to who needs them, B) Using a good balance of HPS/HPM and mana efficiency.

If someone other than the Tank takes enough damage to justify a heal, then you need to heal them (so long as you're supposed to be healing them). A bad healer thinks "but, if I use my heal on them then I don't build up my HPW for free heals". A good healer thinks "how can I efficiently heal them while maximizing my efficiency". The solution: Try to use Holy Shock or WoG on non-Beaconed people who take damage. These are instant, reactive heals, you can use them in a way that minimizes overhealing and doesn't cause them to die because you decided to start casting the heal too late. However, if both are unavailable, then it's not a "waste" to use FoL, HL, or DL on them. 50% of the healing still goes to your Beacon target, they can surely manage the couple seconds you need to make sure someone stays alive.

More-or-less, I agree with the thought that healing the Beacon-target at the expense of healing others is bad. However, I think the reason for why the conversation began is a bad one for healers to use. We shouldn't be concerned with padding meters.

Edit:
For the record, I think someone is trolling me and specifically trying to dislike my videos. I don't understand why people get enjoyment out of that... :-/

[Karyna]

Are you using power auras for the holy power notifications or is it some other add on?

[Chamenas]

Yup, check the Miscellaneous section if you'd like the export for it.

[Namino]

I am using HS on cd. The problem feels like at a certain point when large amounts of tank damage comes the cast times on our spells vs. mana efficiency just isn't there. I can keep a tank up just fine with flash of light but will oom as you transition at 70%. Combining all of the tools given helps a lot but the slow cast times feel like they are a problem. I was just curious if other people found problems like these.

[Mr.Winkle]

This is where I disagree...

I think there's been some confusion. I meant HPM as Healing per Mana (i.e efficiency).

I think healing your beacon target will only ever be beneficial if only that target is taking damage.

Videos. Does anyone actually pay attention to the like/dislike thing? The videos are good anyway, nice quality and good info.

[Mr.Winkle]

I am using HS on cd. The problem feels like at a certain point when large amounts of tank damage comes the cast times on our spells vs. mana efficiency just isn't there. I can keep a tank up just fine with flash of light but will oom as you transition at 70%. Combining all of the tools given helps a lot but the slow cast times feel like they are a problem. I was just curious if other people found problems like these.

It sounds like you're talking about LK? Perhaps you could try saving your HS for the spike damage specifically and otherwise just directly heal your beacon target with as many holy lights as possible using WoG to top them off?

Haven't healed LK since the patch but managed 8 bosses on HC without to much trouble.