World of Warcraft®

@ Nescio: It makes more sence to use world of glory when you have 3 charges of Holy Power (full). That is when the healing it provides is maximized. So when u have it available just use it on the one taking the more damage at the moment, even if it is not the tank. If you wait the charges will wear off, so make use of it when u got it and continue to build on charges of holy power. That way you are conserving mana which is a little better than being out of mana and looking for cheap ways to heal. If you do get in trouble (oom) but have no health or aggro problems (yet) then I suggest going melee range, judging seal of insight and using mostly holy shock but also crusader strike to get 3 charges fast (if you specced Blessed Life talent where you get holy power when hit, then that counts too). Most of the time if you are really out of mana (close to 0%) then it's really too late.. Especially after they nerfed that glyph where you would get 100% mana with Lay on Hands ( I used to do it in the past to get back full mana rather than to save a party member), now only 10%.
I usually fire holy shocks 2 times just before the boss fight (or a big trash fight) in order to be full on 3 charges fast..
Also, cleansing is really important and covers more things than poison but whether a decrease in mana cost is important, that is another question. My advice is always fire it when your party's healing bars change colors. If you get a message saying your cleansing can not be applied (something like invalid target or similar) then stop cleansing and wait for that debuff to wear off, while healing like crazy at the same moment to cover for the extra loss of health. No time there to distinguish between debuffs (poison, cold or slow, curse, etc).
@ Kasel:
I have to disagree with you mate, overhealing provides shielding unless something has changed with last patch. So overheal, overheal all the way. In fact, before Cata it would be safe to say that those who went the Holy Light way (instead of the flash of light with extra spell power way) would always be casting it just to be able to either throw it if it was needed (even if it overhealed) or move on the last second and cancel it if they needed to conserve the mana, thus overcoming the long casting times problem.

Btw I had the chance to observe a druid healing a normal cata instance last night, with only 60% of the maximum mana I had in his level on my paly at the same instance. He did eventually go out of mana ofc but it really showed me again how much easier druids have it with healing on comparison to palies.

When it comes to holy shock i use it on every CD to get my holy power up. It does not cost much plus there is 99% of the time someone who needs a little heal anyway.

When it comes to word of glory if you have points in last word then it gets a 60% increase to crit chance on targets lower than 30% so i use it on low health targets.

As for druid healing they were very broken at the start of Cata so they deserve things a bit easier than they had it at least. All healers are so diffrent that i find it hard to say one has it easier than the other. People could argue that in 10-man a paladin only has 2 targets to heal and gets help with it through HoTs etc.

Overhealing may genereate a small mastery shield, a stat that nobody stacks because of how poor it is, therefore your shield is weak. Also overhealing will drain your mana like you have no idea. If you get into a habit of spamming heals you will reach 85 and be oom on every trash pack, I guarantee you.

In WOTLK it was different, people would always be spamming holy light, we had infinite mana so why not. This is not WOTLK, now we do not have infinite mana, if you burn your big heals they will burn you. Cata is all about smart healing not spam healing.

Also, I would say theres no real benifit to a 3 point WOG, it heals the same per point of holy power. Infact, since WOG someone else procs POTI which heals the beacon, there are advantages to using WOG at low HOPO as you'll proc more of the POTI heals which are free heals on the tank. Obviously this a mana conservation tactic and is not a standard approach, but trust me when your riding the bottom of your mana bar it will help you put out some healing and keep yourself alive without going oom.

Can any one give me some good macros for healing with pallys plz.

ps: love this page nice work is help a lot.

I do not use any macros myself but im sure someone can help you out on here.

I know of some sites but have nevet tried them so do not want to reccomend them to you. I suggest you google search it and try some out.

Glad the page helped you.

Just checked MMO and seems they have made some changes on the PTRs for us

•Divine Light now costs 30% of base mana, down from 33%.
•Flash of Light now costs 27% of base mana, down from 30%.
•Walk in the Light (Mastery) now removes the cooldown on your Word of Glory.
•Word of Glory now has a 20 sec cooldown.
•Aura Mastery now improves the effect of Devotion Aura, Resistance Aura, and Retribution Aura instead of all auras.
•Conviction now procs from non-periodic spells.

The Conviction change is already live i believe so no change there. Some nice changes here i think the reduce in mana cost was needed on both of those spells so thats spot on for me.

As for the other changes i cannot imagine much of a change to be honest. The Word of Glory CD is for rets and prots as they want to nerf the way they heal in PvP. No change for us as our mastery will keep it with no CD anyway.

Same again for Aura Mastery seems to be a PvP nerf to stop you using it for decreased knock back but i never did anyway.

What do you guys think of the changes?

@Deathfiles: wowwiki used to have some nice macros for everyone (not just palies) but they may be a little outdated. However you can read there to understand how macros work and modify those to make your own. After you understand a few things I am sure you 'll find other sources of info which are more up to date.
@Kasel: I sense a flame war coming so will try to keep it low, as it makes no sense in this guide. Excellent gear btw, very jealous here (practicaly drueling over the mace). I have not healed in cata raids yet (my gear is still too low for it) so you may have a better idea of how it works there. Right now, the only way my mana gets drained is if people are taking too much damage because of their low gear or because they are ignoring tactics and I have to spam flash of light to keep them alive. I ll wait till i get to your gear level for more comments in overhealing. In any case spamming big heals was not what I had in mind by that.
About world of glory with less than 3 holy power I can't reproduce the math in paper but I will give you real data: Using it since the start of cata, with only one holy power would give me between 3k heal to 7k. With 3 holy power I would get to a range between 13k and 25k (probably crit). So I think it makes a big difference in action. I still see the same difference in dungeons but since people have more hp, the percentage of health they gain is lower. I agree it will help you stay alive towards the end of the fight when people are close to dying (you also have no time there to wait for a full charge) but I thing it can only delay the inevitable. Most of the time the party will not be aware or undestand your situation (trying to heal with fumes of mana) since they either do not have the tools for it (there are addons warnign about threat and mana for other party members but not too many know and use them) or they simply do not care! So they will probably keep doing what they were doing, making your life more difficult as their way of doing things is probably what put you in that position anyway:out of mana. Most of the time it ends like this: you manage to keep it up for another few minutes (normally you would be dead in seconds) then you die and either the boss is already too low and the remaining members alive will take him down in time, or he will take them down one by one and you wipe. I have never managed to go back up again in mana without using some short of cooldown (for example lay on hands one anyone to get back 10% mana). I believe it can be different if the party is not consisted of random members. Guildies for example will know how you heal and expect your reactions.

@Zalandar: I still think Druids have it easy in comparison to palies, we are just more tough (plate) and have more chances to survive in raids which can save the day sometimes. We do need them though, so I am more jealous than I care to admit than anything else (I am leveling one).
I was having trouble with my first heroics so tried integrating holy radiance more, some light of dawn (depending on where I am standing in regards with the rest of the party) and spirit of ancient kings when really needed. Holy Radiance really helped me! When 2 or more party members are loosing hp fast I hit it and keep them up with Holy Lights (conserving mana instead of bigger heals to bring them back up) and I am having an easier time that way. I think blizzard really expects us to integrate those in our healing arsenal. Also choosing either ONLY world of glory or ONLY Light of Dawn to spend your holy power makes no sense I think, we are meant to use both. It does change a bit the way we do things since we loose a bit the role of purely single target healer.
I highly suggest experimenting with melee range healing when aggro control (by the tank) and tactics allow it in an encounter (watch it or you may be the reason for a wipe), it will make a big difference with holy power and mana regen. I tried those in the last boss of Grim Batol (heroic), standing practically under him (like the tree boss in the nexus). I got in as a replacement healer and after I undestood how it works I finished the fight at 85% mana with no sweat.
I don't like the cooldown on Word of Glory. I have reforged most gear decreasing Mastery to increase other stats (like haste and spirit) so I guess that would mean restoring that gear, or even changing gear (I even passed on a mastery trinket in a heroic yesterday). Also it would mean a loss in stats again. I wish they would lets us get the hang of things and then make whatever small improvements they want. Any idea on how much mastery is needed to remove the cooldown?
The decrease in mana cost is good but it won't be enough to resolve our mana problems.
Palies with lower gear in normal dungeons are really having trouble i think. I noticed that leveling my dk and watching them heal. Sometimes they go out of mana in the middle of the fight, on every fight. I think also that we are confused as a class on how to get better gear between lvls 80-83. I was almost full 264 gear before Cata and I used my retri spec a lot when leveling because I could get away with using lower level gear than actually needed in dungeons. As a healer you simply can't do it.

25/02/2011 9:44 AMPosted by Mythryll

don't like the cooldown on Word of Glory

That does not apply to us only to rets and prots. Our mastery removes the CD on it. I do not think it is a case of needed mastery to remove it more a case of rather putting a new talent in they just integrated it into our mastery. Its for the sole reason that in PvP pallys were able to heal there partners with WoG and Blizz think to seem that this is unfair so have decided to nerf it but in the case of holy there is no change.

The decrease in mana cost is good but it won't be enough to resolve our mana problems.
Pallys with lower gear in normal dungeons are really having trouble i think

I do not have any mana problems at all at the moment. In most cases when i go OOM its because of mistakes from dps both in hcs and raids. I assume that the same problem is happening to low lvl pallys. CC in cata seems to have been forgotten already so with low gear of course you will go oom.

As far as Holy radiance and LoD go i love Holy radiance as in pretty much raid boss there is a chance to use it when people are stacked. LoD i still think is a pretty weak spell however it is fantastic at keeping Conviction stacked up so i have been using it more.

Also the trinkets look amazing in 4.1 i cannot wait to see what other gear is coming.

wish I had one of these for protection paladins......though my aimless wondering seems to have worked out well....

No no flame war I just disagreed with the points you made re the mastery shield.

As for WOG I remember it used to heal more depending on how much hopo you had but I'm sure when Blizz nerfed it they took it down to a static amount, modified by SP per charge.

So for example my WOG at full power might heal(non crit) for around 20k but my 1 WOG heals for maybe 5-7k, plus a 4k POTI heal(2k to beacon) so thats 7-9k heal for 1 WOG proc, versus 22k(one POTI proc) for a 3 point.
In the end the numbers add up to being just a tiny fraction better.

But what I would say is chances are the tank needs a bigger heal and using your GCD on a 1 point WOG is not a good idea. But if your riding the bottom of your mana bar it can help till you recover a bit or wait for a cd to finish.

I must admit in heroics it seems easy enough to keep mana up, in my gear unless people totally mess up I don't really drop below 90% mana most times on trash and below 50% for a boss fight with lots of aoe damage.

on raid bosses though there is always a lot of tank + aoe damage and using HR becomes a real mana drain when you also have to spam heal the tank.

So this is maybe a question that is hard to answer, but I'm wondering what the amounts of certain stats are, what I should aim for.

I understand that haste must be capped.

But how much intel/spirit should I have? I'm doing heroic dungeons and wouldn't mind raiding at some point.

This is what I have right now:

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/aggramar/nescio/simple

3315 int
1904 spirit
4436 stam

I aim to get more spirit soon, cause at the end of boss fights I'm pretty tight on mana.

My haste is currently 1218, well over the soft cap, but I'm never in 25 man raids. 90% of my playing time is in heroic cataclysm dungeons. Do you recommend getting more or should I reforge my mastery into crit?

@ Nescio

As far as int goes keep stacking it forever and ever. Red gem slot should always be int gem and all enchants should be int where possible.

Stack spirit until you are happy with your mana management. Going oom at the end of a fight is fine as long as its not during.

I have stacked haste to the point where my spells cast at 1.9 cast time under 10-man raid buffs. This seems to be fine for me but others will have more and some maybe less so whatever you prefer.

Zalandar I have to disagree with you on the point of haste.

What your not accounting for is what Crit adds as benefits.

-Less spell casting thus maintaining a higher mana level
-Less spirit needed to maintain high mana levels thus making items without spirit very useful to increase crit and haste.
-When a crit happens it reduces the amount of times you have to heal one target to max em up making you able to switch targets alot easier during heavy damage periods
-When a crit happens your mastery skill will also scale to its output thus increasing the absorb effect by 50%

Sofar not single haste based holy pala has ever beaten me in output in PvE raids.
And especially in the mana department at the end of a boss fight.

I don't forget about haste all together its simply bumped below crit in my stat choice list.

As stated some paladins would have crit than haste. It still remains a fact that when you do the numbers haste is better because of the transfer value.

I'm interested to know what HPS you do with crit over haste. Also do you not find keeping conviction up a problem if you are putting out less heals?

As for saving mana i never have a problem in normals unless people make mistakes anyway.

Stacking crit over haste is not wrong but it makes more sense to most pallys to go for haste.

Also on the note of going for items without spirit. Since these are designed with ranged dps in mind i never take these unless it is a huge upgrade on what i got.

http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t110847-%5Bholy%5Dcataclysm_holy_compendium_4_0_6_a/

Above is a really detailed guide with all the numbers. Unlike mine it is more for advanced paladins players to improve there game play where as i aim to help newish players. Have a look and you will see why i rate crit and mastery bottom of the pile.

Zalandar, I'd like to echo the congratulations/thanks other people have given you for writing this guide. I'd been lucky enough to source a lot of the info elsewhere, but it doesn't hurt seeing it put together as a complete article, and giving me ideas as to what to change in order to improve. Bravo, sir!

I have some questions regarding paladin positioning, both in raids and instances, and would like people's opinions/comments.

Now that we have two spells that depend on positioning, one healing in a cone ahead of us, the other healing people in our immediate vicinity, it makes 'just being in healing range' no longer sufficient (unless I am missing something, which is highly possible!!)

Often in fights, the group's positioning is key. A fight might need the tank to pull a mob far away from the rest of the group; in a raid you might have an off-tank needing to pull a second mob to the opposite corner/side of the room. Add to that ranged DPS'ers who may want to stay at maximum range, and there you have a recipe for the 'headless chicken run', which I seem to do more often than I am comfortable with - what I mean by this is having to run around all the time to try and find optimal points not just to be in healing range of the group, but where I can use those spells that heal based on the targets' positions.

As for using the Seal & Judgement on a mob - often I am running around so much I don't get the chance to keep getting back into melee range to take a low powered swipe at a mob, especially if the mob is a boss and the positional requirements expect just the tank to be in melee range.

I appreciate that I can't heal everyone all of the time, I've been playing a holy paladin long enough to know that; it's just the 'headless chicken' runaround that is a little annoying, and although there was always a requirement to move during fights to a degree, that seems to me to have increased somewhat since the Cataclysm changes.

What do you think?

Ive already read the story on elitest and came to the exact same conclusion as i posted above. They do not account for the benefits of crit over haste.
I know the numbers may look good
100 Haste provides: * ~0.78% Spell Haste
100 Crit provides: * ~0.56% Spell Crit

But still doesn't say anything about crit being way more mana efficient nor does it say anything about the scaling of the mastery skill. and those are just the number stats that are improved.
When you look at game play its alot easier to have large heals hit with massive absorbs giving you more time to switch targets or stay alert during phase transitions or whatever

Then the point of the gear.
There is no plate wearing range DPS class so that defeats that whole statement. The gear your referring to is designed and only usable by Holy paladins and i don't believe blizz would make ilvl 359 gear which is useless. (and please dont say you think exo spam is a dps class :P )
Take a look at the T11 set. Not a single haste stat to be found so why would the intention be stack haste? Blizz definitely thinks otherwise.

So due to the higher mana efficiency i can equip a few items that boost haste and crit instead of worrying about spirit.
Just like you said you try to avoid this kind of gear but dont have mana issues. How about even less mana issues and boost your crit and haste by say 160 rating a piece. In the end youll just be jacking up you output at the cost of less mana.

I currently get around 11-13k HPS and with CD's 20-22k HPS. In haste based gear that drops about -2k HPS
And nope as long as you have 500+ haste rating your good on the conviction.

With out raid buffs i have 7% Haste and 19% Crit
With full raid buffs i have 24% Haste and 25% Crit. 1 in 4 heals = crit
This is actually quite reliable and that's not counting the extra crit chance some spells have themselves.

I want to post this here because i find it very relevant to new players. Everyone is shouting "STACK HASTE" and in the end i have to spend countless hours replying to people how i top the healing meters without stacking haste because someone told em to or they read it on elitest I mean how could they be wrong right?

Why do you say that mastery is most useless stat?
I have not done raid instances,but as a pala healer should't you be mostly tank healer,and have other ppl doing aoe healing?
Maybe for 10 man mastery might be not good,but for 25 man I think is best stat.
I think blizz made pala and shaman tank healer and druid/priest raid healers,no ideea about how fights are.
See that now mastery give +1.25% at absorb shield,not 1%.
I want to get mark of khardos at my pala healer(even hc version) ,but is hard,lots of dpsers who do not understand that is a nice healing trinket also :p.

Here is my pala healer lolz.

Mastery is the most useless stat we have.
It does not in anyway whatsoever increase your healing its just a nice secondary damage mitigation
Haste and Crit on the other hand directly improve your healing output which in turn improves your mastery output as well in the form of larger or more frequent absorbs.