Filed under: Paladin Mechanics, PVP, Theorycrafting | Tags: Healing, Holy, Paladin Mechanics, PVP, spells, Theroycrafting
Hello again! Today and for the next few posts, I’m going to look at the caveats of Holy Paladin Healing in PVP. We’ll look at arena healing, battleground healing, and see which talents and spells are best suited for player on player action. First off, let’s take a look at talents.
For Holy Paladin PVP there are a whole bunch of specs out there, but I’m only going to talk about the two I would normally use. From what I understand, it’s the two highest mainstream pvp talent builds also so don’t worry 
Talent Spec 1: Holy/Ret Build
Level 80 Paladin (45/0/26)
Holy (45 points)
Spiritual Focus – Rank 5/5
Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Flash of Light and Holy Light by 70%.
Healing Light – Rank 3/3
Increases the amount healed by your Holy Light, Flash of Light and the effectiveness of Holy Shock spells by 12%.
Divine Intellect – Rank 5/5
Increases your total Intellect by 15%.
Aura Mastery – Rank 1/1
Causes your Concentration Aura to make all affected targets immune to Silence and Interrupt effects and improve the effect of all other auras by 100%. Lasts 10 sec.
Illumination – Rank 5/5
After getting a critical effect from your Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Holy Shock heal spell you have a 100% chance to gain mana equal to 60% of the base cost of the spell.
Improved Concentration Aura – Rank 3/3
Increases the effect of your Concentration Aura by an additional 15% and while any Aura is active reduces the duration of any Silence or Interrupt effect used against an affected group member by 30%. The duration reduction does not stack with any other effects.
Blessed Hands – Rank 2/2
Reduces the mana cost of Hand of Freedom, Hand of Sacrifice and Hand of Salvation by 30%, increases the effectiveness of Hand of Salvation by 100% and the effectiveness of Hand of Sacrifice by an additional 10%.
Divine Favor – Rank 1/1
When activated, gives your next Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Holy Shock spell a 100% critical effect chance.
Sanctified Light – Rank 3/3
Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy Light and Holy Shock spells by 6%.
Holy Power – Rank 5/5
Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 5%.
Light’s Grace – Rank 3/3
Gives your Holy Light spell a 100% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by 0.5 sec. This effect lasts 15 sec.
Holy Shock – Rank 1/1
Blasts the target with Holy energy, causing 1296 to 1402 Holy damage to an enemy, or 2401 to 2599 healing to an ally.
Sacred Cleansing – Rank 3/3
Your Cleanse spell has a 30% chance to increase the target’s resistance to Disease, Magic and Poison by 30% for 10 sec.
Holy Guidance – Rank 5/5
Increases your spell power by 20% of your total Intellect.
Protection (0 points)
None
Retribution (26 points)
Benediction – Rank 5/5
Reduces the mana cost of all instant cast spells by 10%.
Improved Judgements – Rank 2/2
Decreases the cooldown of your Judgement spells by 2 sec.
Heart of the Crusader – Rank 3/3
In addition to the normal effect, your Judgement spells will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by an additional 3%.
Vindication – Rank 2/2
Gives the Paladin’s damaging attacks a chance to reduce the target’s attributes by 20% for 15 sec.
Conviction – Rank 5/5
Increases your chance to get a critical strike with all spells and attacks by 5%.
Pursuit of Justice – Rank 2/2
Reduces the duration of all Disarm effects by 50% and increases movement and mounted movement speed by 15%. This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.
Eye for an Eye – Rank 2/2
All criticals against you cause 20% of the damage taken to the attacker as well. The damage caused by Eye for an Eye will not exceed 50% of the Paladin’s total health.
Sanctity of Battle – Rank 3/3
Increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and attacks by 3% and increases the damage caused by Exorcism and Crusader Strike by 15%.
Sanctified Retribution – Rank 1/1
Increases the damage caused by Retribution Aura by 50% and all damage caused by friendly targets affected by any of your Auras is increased by 3%.
Divine Purpose – Rank 1/2
Reduces your chance to be hit by spells and ranged attacks by 2% and gives your Hand of Freedom spell a 50% chance to remove any Stun effects on the target.
This build capitolizes on the spell pushback reduction of improved concentration aura, and with it’s mid ret talents, gives you anothe ‘escape’ from crowd control with Divine Purpose, all while maintaining the same amount of spell power a raid build holy paladin would have. Making your primary healing spells (FoL and Holy Shock) for pvp that much more potent.
There are 3 talent points you’re free to spend, but I chose to talent into divine cleansing, I primarily run a 2v2 team (more on holy pally team comps later) and cleasing my partner from snares, diseases, poisons and magical effects giving a chance to resist those schools I think is really nice.
Talent spec 2: Holy/Prot Build
Level 80 Paladin (44/27/0)
Holy (44 points)
Spiritual Focus – Rank 5/5
Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Flash of Light and Holy Light by 70%.
Healing Light – Rank 3/3
Increases the amount healed by your Holy Light, Flash of Light and the effectiveness of Holy Shock spells by 12%.
Divine Intellect – Rank 5/5
Increases your total Intellect by 15%.
Aura Mastery – Rank 1/1
Causes your Concentration Aura to make all affected targets immune to Silence and Interrupt effects and improve the effect of all other auras by 100%. Lasts 10 sec.
Illumination – Rank 5/5
After getting a critical effect from your Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Holy Shock heal spell you have a 100% chance to gain mana equal to 60% of the base cost of the spell.
Improved Concentration Aura – Rank 3/3
Increases the effect of your Concentration Aura by an additional 15% and while any Aura is active reduces the duration of any Silence or Interrupt effect used against an affected group member by 30%. The duration reduction does not stack with any other effects.
Blessed Hands – Rank 2/2
Reduces the mana cost of Hand of Freedom, Hand of Sacrifice and Hand of Salvation by 30%, increases the effectiveness of Hand of Salvation by 100% and the effectiveness of Hand of Sacrifice by an additional 10%.
Pure of Heart – Rank 2/2
Reduces the duration of Curse, Disease and Poison effects by 30%.
Divine Favor – Rank 1/1
When activated, gives your next Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Holy Shock spell a 100% critical effect chance.
Sanctified Light – Rank 3/3
Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy Light and Holy Shock spells by 6%.
Holy Power – Rank 5/5
Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 5%.
Light’s Grace – Rank 3/3
Gives your Holy Light spell a 100% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by 0.5 sec. This effect lasts 15 sec.
Holy Shock – Rank 1/1
Blasts the target with Holy energy, causing 1296 to 1402 Holy damage to an enemy, or 2401 to 2599 healing to an ally.
Holy Guidance – Rank 5/5
Increases your spell power by 20% of your total Intellect.
Protection (27 points)
Divinity – Rank 5/5
Increases all healing done by you and all healing effects on you by 5%.
Stoicism – Rank 3/3
Reduces the duration of all Stun effects by an additional 30% and reduces the chance your helpful spells and damage over time effects will be dispelled by an additional 30%.
Guardian’s Favor – Rank 2/2
Reduces the cooldown of your Hand of Protection by 120 sec and increases the duration of your Hand of Freedom by 4 sec.
Divine Sacrifice – Rank 1/1
30% of all damage taken by party or raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin (up to a maximum of 150% of the Paladin’s health). Lasts 10 sec.
Improved Righteous Fury – Rank 3/3
While Righteous Fury is active, all damage taken is reduced by 6%.
Toughness – Rank 5/5
Increases your armor value from items by 10% and reduces the duration of all movement slowing effects by 30%.
Divine Guardian – Rank 2/2
Improves the effectiveness of your Divine Sacrifice spell by an additional 10% and increases the duration of your Sacred Shield by 100% and the amount absorbed by 20%.
Improved Hammer of Justice – Rank 1/2
Decreases the cooldown of your Hammer of Justice spell by 10 sec.
Improved Devotion Aura – Rank 3/3
Increases the armor bonus of your Devotion Aura by 50% and increases the amount healed on any target affected by any of your Auras by 6%.
Sacred Duty – Rank 2/2
Increases your total Stamina by 8%, reduces the cooldown of your Divine Shield and Divine Protection spells by 60 sec.
Retribution (0 points)
None
This talent build has some pros and cons to it compared to the Holy/Ret build. In this build you gain reduced cooldowns for all your protection and shield spells, decreased stun durations, about 10-12% additional healing which really makes your flash of lights go up. and a sacred shield that lasts for 1 minute as well as an additional damage mitigation talent. You lose a significant amount of crit, your running speed to get away, and a third escape which is crucial to kiting damage dealers after judging them with justice.
We’ll get into holy healing strategy later, personally I choose the Holy/Ret build. The decision is yours, next time we’ll talk about the spells we mainly use, when to use them, and overall strategy for the holy paladin in pvp.
Filed under: Gear, Paladin Mechanics, Raiding, Theorycrafting | Tags: Gear, Healing, Holy, Libram, Paladin, Paladin Mechanics, Raiding, spells, Theorycrafting
Today we’re going to talk about the different items you can aquire to reduce the cost of your most EXPENSIVE spell, the Holy Light, and then we’ll discuss to see if we ~really~ have to acquire those items to be ‘raid healing viable’ and perform just as well or better without those items.
Let’s first talk about how much Holy Light costs to cast, Holy Light Rank 6 costs 29% of your base mana per cast.
Holy Paladin base mana = 4394 mana at level 80
29% of 4394 bas mana = 1274.26 mana
Let’s say we have a 20k mana pool, casting Holy Lights non stop and not critting and no replenishment will get you to just about 16 casts of holy light.
Holy light is roughly a 2 second cast to be conservative being raid buffed and so that leaves you with 32 seconds of healing, this alone will not get you through a boss fight, so what if we -reduce- the cost of Holy Light? Can we lengthen our time to heal by making it cheaper to cast? Let’s see what we can do to bring down that spell.
1. Paladin T7-7.5 4-piece set bonus = -5% reduction to Holy Light
5% of 1274.26 = 63.71 mana discount
2. Libram of Renewal reduces mana cost of Holy Light by 113.
113 mana discount from libram
3. Glyph of Seal of Wisdom reduces the cost of ALL spells by 5%
5% of 1274.26 = 63.71 mana discount
so in total if we have all three Holy Light reducing items equiped, its a total mana discount of 240.42 mana. Thats a pretty big discount!
This makes Holy Light cost 1033.84 instead of 1274.26!!
Casting the discounted Holy Light with a 20k mana pool like before with no replenishment and no critting will get you roughly 20 casts.
20 casts at roundabout 2 sec cast = 40 seconds of healing
So we increased our healing time by 8 seconds, that’s pretty impressive, almost an entire minute of spamming our most costly spell and gaining no replenishment.
Let’s talk about replenishment, we have:
Divine Plea = 25% of total mana returned in 15 seconds
(20k mana pool that would equal about 1666 MP5 for 15 seconds alone, the reason why we love intellect so much)
Illumination = 60% mana return if your healing spells crit
(we’ll use the discounted Holy Light as an example: 60% if 1033.84 = 620.3 mana returned, this talent alone cuts your Holy Light cost in half, the reason why we love crit so much.)
Replenishment = .25% mana per second for 15 seconds based on your max mana pool, roughly 3.75% mana replenishment in 15 seconds.
(.25% from 20k mana pool = 50 mana per second return, or 750 mana returned in 15 seconds)
**Divine Illumination – reduces the cost of all spells by 50% for 15 seconds, technically we can use this to reduce the cost of Holy Light but since its a 15 second buff that’s on a 3 minute Cooldown I decided not to include it to make things easy math wise.
We then have Blessing of Wisdom which returns 92 mp5 untalented and 109 improved through talents, and of course any mana per 5 thats included with the gear you have.
To be conservative let’s say we have around 200 MP5 from gear alone before we add in all of our replenishment, that’s a conservative number including rings trinkets, weapons, anything that may have MP5 on it.
Then lets add in all of our replenishment factors and see what kind of mana retrurn we see during fights. This is all going to be done through Mana per 5 seconds.
200 MP5 Mana from gear
250 MP5 Mana from replenishment
1666 MP5 Mana from Divine Plea
109 MP5 Mana from improved blessing of wisdom
——————–
2225 MP5 from these abilities ALONE, these do not include mana returned from crits, OR Divine Illumination cutting the cost of all spells in half for 15 seconds every 3 minutes.
In summary, gearing to reduce the cost of Holy Light is ideal, T8 and beyond do not have any Holy Light modifiers, but the Libram with the glyph should get you to where you need to be Holy Light wise moving forward with new tier pieces.
Filed under: Gear, Paladin Mechanics, Raiding, Theorycrafting | Tags: Gear, Healing, Holy, Paladin, Paladin Mechanics, Raiding, Theorycrafting
Today I’m going to talk about the differences between the current T7.5 sets and compare the itemization and set bonuses with the Ulduar T8 version to see how ‘upgrading’ to the higher ilvl items will effect our class.
Looking at the T7 gear from Naxxramas, for paladins you’ll find a very large amount of crit on the gear. Given the talent builds and more specifically our ‘Illumination’ talent, we have with patch 3.0-3.1 Paladins gain a significant amount of replenishment from crits, so logically this is the most reasonable choice for ‘best in slot’ purposes. It comes with a sizable amount of spell power and can be gemmed to suit any healing build reasonably. The Tier 7 set bonuses are (2 piece) Holy shock gains +10% crit chance (4 piece) Holy Light’s mana cost is discounted 5%.
The 2-piece set bonus is fantastic, Holy Shock costs a sizeable amount of mana, so the increase in crit chance helps alleviate that cost by returning mana through illumination when it -does crit-.
The 4-piece set bonus is great because during longer fights when you have to use your largest healing spell, the 5% mana reduction can add up. This will allow you to practically chain cast Holy Light to your hearts content.
With the current state of Illumination, the T7 set is an excellent set for raiding. It hits home on our most prized talent for replenishment and gives us enough spell power to cast 20k Holy Light crits, gotta love it.
Now lets take a look at the Ulduar gear upgrades, in comparison to the T7 Naxxramas gear, you’ll find that the total gear only crit is REDUCED from 184 to 153!! What happened to 31 points of crit on our gear?!!? Spell power was increased significantly from 391 to 481 spell power. MP5 on the new T8 gear was buffed up from 35 to 74 Mana Regeneration. So let’s think about what happens here, our crits ultimately decrease by a marginal amount reducing our replenishment from illumination, our spell power is buffed so we’re going to cast larger critting heals when we -do- crit, and we get double the amount of MP5 which increases our baseline replenishment across the board no matter if we crit or not. Let’s look at the set bonuses: (2 piece) Holy Shock crits place a Heal over time effect healing for 15% of the shocked amount (4 piece) Sacred Shield triggers every 4 seconds instead of every 6 seconds.
The 2 Piece bonus I think is kind of nifty, Paladins at the moment don’t have any HoTs they can apply to targets, binding your Holy Shock with your instant crit ability will make this a really nice bonus.
The 4 Piece bonus is nice as well, this would ultimately proc the +50% chance to crit with FoL and keep a 100% up-time, coupling this set bonus with the Holy/Prot build would practically make you have Disc Priest sized shields on the tank yes? (maybe i’m exaggerating lol)
Why would blizzard ‘buff’ MP5 and not crit for holy paladins?
The class designers for paladins have mentioned in their forum posts that they’ve wanted to make MP5 a bit more of a stat that Paladins look at as a source of significant replenishment, but not to the point where we would ignore crit completely. As of right now, most paladins are gearing/gemming to completely ignore MP5 and it’s working. This makes our Illumination talent, ‘Overpowered’ in the eyes of the game developers when we rely to heavily on one specific stat when crit in reality isn’t a pure ‘replenishment’ stat. HOWEVER, developers were okay with Illumination being overpowered because we are SINGLE target healers, they could justify our class to have unbelievable single target healing ability, because we aren’t viable to heal raid damage in most cases. This will change after patch 3.2…….why you ask?
Beacon of Light will allow us to be ‘raid healing viable’ duplicating 100% of our heals (even if overhealed) to the beaconed target. Probably the biggest buff to Paladins healing since WOTLK, but with great power comes great nerfs to balance….
So after patch 3.2 hits, our beloved Illumination talent is going to be hit with the nerf bat. Instead of being credited back 60% of the base mana cost, it’s getting nerfed to credit back 30%, a 50% slashing of replenishment from crits alone. Our Divine Intellect talent is ALSO getting the nerf bat increasing intellect 10% down from 15%. All because they feel we’re ‘raid healing viable’ now.
They’re buffing MP5 on all gear after 3.2 as well i guess to alleviate some of the replenishment issues by focusing on crit purely. We’re not going to get as much mana back from crits like we used to, and -SPAMMING- Holy Light is not going to be an option for Paladin healers any longer.
After patch 3.2 MP5 will/should be raised to reasonable levels to make us think of stacking it for replenishment. At very high levels MP5 -can- be overpowered, but rest assured the game developers will be keeping a close watch, and will make adjustments as they see fit if MP5 starts to get out of hand.
SO, as you can see there is an ‘evolution’ of gear moving from T7 to T8, pre patch 3.2 I would say T7-7.5 would be ‘best in slot’ since it capitalizes on our main illumination talent, and provides the best mana efficiency to our most mana costly spells.
After 3.2 launches and the talent tree changes take effect, T8 would probably be best in slot. T9 gear will also be available after the patch so we’ll do another comparison then once it goes live to see how it fares to the new mechanics of pally healing and see which set capitalizes on our strengths the most.
Below is a link showing the item comparison on wowhead.com:
