Woo my first Holy Pally update Blog! I'm going to discuss the changes that hit us in 5.3 and what that means to how we play.

First just the notes

 

• Mastery: Illuminated Healing now places an absorb shield for 10% of the amount healed, down from 12%.
• Daybreak is now a stackable effect with a duration of 10 seconds, stacks up to 2 times, and causes the next Holy Shock to also heal other allies within 10 yards of the target for an amount equal to 75%/150% of the original healing done.
• Item Sets
  
  • Tier-14 Holy Paladin 4-piece set bonus now reduces the cooldown of Holy Shock by 1 second, down from 2 seconds.

So Mastery!

Sadly they decided (inc flame from Atar, Kauu, Sassyßrat and Luna) that Holy Pallies were just too OP with their bubbles. They brought the ammount of healing from our mastery down by 2% /whopty doo. I'm still in forums now (as this just went up) to see the real numbers from this change and the difference. But I'm guessing as long as you're getting gear and upgrades this wont effect you much. 

Numbers I'm seeing so far is putting haste out in front of stat priority only slightly as it "scales" better than mastery. As to say it takes less haste for each 1%.

The numbers are as follows so far

*OLD*

• 400 Mastery = 1% Illuminated Healing

*New*

• 480 Mastery = 1% Illuminated Healing

• Haste 425 = 1% Haste Rating

 

BUT DONT GIVE UP ON MASTERY! It will still be our top heal and Illuminated heailng effectively costs no mana. Where as more haste will still continue to drain your mana bar quicker.

 

Daybreak!

Let's talk Daybreak, It's a buff we get after a cast of Holy Radiance that turns our Holy Shock into an AOE spreading it over 10 people. Makes for some great AOE healing and keeps your finger off Holy Radiance as much

My 5.2 AOE healing rotation (when stacked) is

HR > LoD > HS > LoD --repeat that until it's over

So how they have it now is a bit of a nerf to that style. The first stack of Daybreak after a Holy Radiance is only 75% of the holy shock over 10 people (used to be a flat 100%) But at two stacks you get 150%! of your heal over 10 targets.

HR > LoD > HR > LoD > HS > LoD > HR > LoD > HR > LoD > HS > LoD  -- Repeat (please note you can save your LoD for 3 holy power in more control scenarios)

With our two piece T15 This will make Daybreak up to 225% (I believe) Making it one of our most POWERFUL AOE heals possibly (will have to see real numbers before I make that call)

 

R.I.P. T14 4P

We hardly knew you. To be fair we were going to hold onto you until heroic T15 4P. They could have simply buffed T15 bonuses a bit... but know they had to hurt you instead. You're my favorite set bonus of the whole game thus far. I can't think of another bonus that made such a huge impact on our healing, or my heart. You took my favorite heal in the game, and you made it oh so much better.

In seriousness now, Be ready to have T15 pieces laying around ready to swap out your T14 at any given time. In AOE centric fights (i.e. Megaera's Rampage) 2 pieces of both tiers will provide maximum healing. Where on tank centric fights (i.e. Ji Kun Main Platform) T15 4 piece will sadly be king.

Well that's my first installment of Holy Pally PTR changes.

Hey guys,

a lot of you probably dont know me, but my two job days are one for a while (probably a long while) so ive decided that ill be resubbing soon.  i probably wont be looking to join anything more than randoms, but ill be back in game soon on a semi regular basis.  miss you all, hope that raiding and cata are as cool as the screenshots ive been seeing.

 

epat

 

 

I'll start by hitting the big changes and then get into more details later.  First say goodbye to the faceroll rotation and say hello to a very rigid and unforgiving rotation.  I am loving the holy power mechanic so far and I have to say that its going to be really easy to spot Paladins who know what they are doing and those that have no clue.  

I'll get into talent changes, stats, reforging this weekend when I have time to be detailed.  

Most of the information is from either my own findings or reading from EJ_RET_4.0.1

Rotation.

I dont have tons of data to go by yet but I have spent a lot of time on the target dummy and I feel like I have the basic rotation down.  First off Crusader Strike (CS) is our main way of getting Holy Power (HP).  Every time it hits we get 1 HP.  With my current gear + talent (I'll get into this later) my CS comes off CD about every 3 seconds.  This gives me time to react to AoW procs (free instant cast of Exorsim) or , Judge, holy wrath (HW), throw my hammer (if in execute range or if I have wings active).  Templars Verdict (TV) and Divine Storm (DS) our the only DPS finishers we have at level 80 and each should only be used when you have 3 HP.  DS now is only used if you have multiple targets and TV will be the main finisher you use.  Seal of Truth is the dps seal. The 31 point talent Zealotry also consumes HP and should also only be used when you have 3 HP.  This talent allows CS to grand 3 HP instead of just 1 so you will change your rotation accordingly.  Here is what my rotation looks like currently for three different phases of a fight.  

Meat and Potatoes (no heroism, wings, or execute range)

CS filler CS filler CS ..  TV will replace CS or filler if you have 3 holy power  

filler: judge, HW, Exorcism procs.

For procs that appear if its the Mastery proc Hand of Light (TV as though you have 3 HP and doesnt use any HP) its always #1 priority.  If there is AoW proc and I have 3 HP already then its TV then Exorcism.  There is a talent that give a 40% change of gaining HP from Judgements, Exorcism, (others) so you dont want to use a skill if you already have 3 HP and potentially waste that HP.  Sometimes you will find that you will proc 2-3 Hand of light in a row so its important to use them and then get back into the rotation.  

Wings + Zealotry 

hammer CS TV filler CS TV filler CS TV hammer ...

(looking into if it is really best to use zealotry with Wings or not.

This is an easy area to screw up and I'm still working on perfecting it.  I would say that while wings is up hammer hits hard and should be #1 priority.  I may change my mind as I get more data but thats my feeling right now.  Again any TV procs that happen should be consumed right away and exorcism procs should be used as fillers since TV currently hits a lot harder then Exorcism.  

Execute Range

Pretty much the same as Meat and Potatoes except that you use hammer as a filler when its available.

As you can see the old rotation is dead and gone.  

You'll notice that I never mentioned consecrate because its a huge mana dump atm and the damage that it does is almost equal to the mana (2.5k ish).  On multiple targets you'll change out TV with DS and add consecrate (maybe worth it on 4+ mobs) as a filler but otherwise its the same rotation as I stated above.  

I'll get some more in here as time permits.

The boost they gave to us is good.  Not OP good but it puts us close to where we were pre 4.0.1 so that its the new rotation thats hindering damage and not because we are swinging a wet noodle..

First off, my apologies for not continuing this sooner. Time hasn't truly been on my side lately (nor the brain power to completely discuss a topic and not come off as some trolling nublette) But here we are, that much closer to Cata and I've seen some pretty neat stuff for us Holy Paladins.

As always I will discuss Holy since.... well I do have 2 holy pallies.

(all info within of course comes from mmo champion with exception of my own speculation)

Mastery

"Q. How do the Mastery Bonuses work now that they don't show up on the talent interface anymore?

A. The Mastery Bonuses will be trainable passive bonuses somewhere around level 75. Each talent specialization will have a different Mastery available on the trainer with a base potency with 0 Mastery Rating. The character sheet interface will have additional information on the additional potency gained from Mastery Rating. "

Ok so that's a good general idea of Masteries, or at least how they are obtained.

For holy we'll be look at our 3 masteries and how they'll effect us. Keep in mind since I don't have the beta I can't really see what the numbers are for these for how much mastery we have on our gear.

Mastery #1

Healing.  Pretty straight forward... bonus healing not much to it  but a useful first mastery

Mastery #2

Meditation.  This is our mp5 bread and butter, this is where pallies will get what I've always wanted. (no not mp5 from hit gear) MP5 from Spirit...... but this is the same for all healing classes. Kinda of generic but hey not everything can be new shiny and unique.

Mastery #3

Critical Healing Effect. Thank god this is back to some extent, not only will we have stuff that gives us a higher chance to crit but now our mastery bonuses will give us a bigger heal when we do. Why am I glad about this? because of the homogenization on healers in this next expansion (with exceptions of our cool new spells) I think were going to need a little extra help keeping the tanks up. (yes I know we wont be necessarily tank healing) 

Okay those are our Masteries. each will be increased based off the amount of mastery we have on our gear. So very cool. Let's move on to some of the odder abilities, and then maybe if I have the brain power I'll get a little into our talent tree.

 

Spells And Abilities

 

Flash Of Light.

What used to be our bread and butter spell (TBC) is now something that is reserved for the instant proc from a crit holy shock or just to put a hot up on the tank we happen to be healing. This i s being changed in a way. It will be our fast and expensive spell (if you don't know about the new healing outline blizz has setup go read up on it) So not very mana efficient, but very fast cast time to fight off a death.

To match this pattern Holy Light is now very mana efficient but not very much throughput, and we have a new heal (well we have several but I'll get to those) Called...... *drum roll* Divine Light! which will be similar to a priest's Greater Heal (or so they say) so thats our huge throughput heal which will probably cost an arm a leg and a testicle to cast.

So theres our 3 main spells to match the new healing idea from Blizz. Let's discuss the cool new ones now.

In my previous blog I touched on Healing Hands, we have a bit more information along with a "number" for the aoe heal over time (not channeled from what I can tell) 

Heals all friendly targets within 10 yards for 683.58 every sec. Lasts 10 sec.
40% of base mana, Instant cast

A couple of things, firstly this is up from the 6 seconds duration it was before (clearly not set in stone here) and secondly and obviously this is a base number and is most likely (almost certainly) effected by our +healing and hopefully can crit. IS this to replace The holy bomb? no no not really, but it's a neat spell with a short CD. (15 seconds is the latest number I have for the CD on it)  This is now a 1 minute CD Untalented 30 seconds talented

 

We have a new spell though that requires some thought and discussion.... and I wonder if it'll make it to the game or if we will use it because it strikes me more as a gimmick, or on the other hand (just literally thought of this) it could be our version of "chain heal"

can I get another drum roll? no? ok then fine 

LIGHT OF DAWN! Info listed below as it's currently the 31 point talent

So technically we could do what Kish is so good at and proud of and that's heal all of the melee like gods in the Saurfang encounter (or other similar situations where a solid group of people need a bit of healing) Now why do I wonder if this will make it to the final game? ......eh like I said, seems kind of like a gimmick more than anything. I think that while they're trying to bring all of the healers to a similar model, I think this may make us too close to some other healers. Or even give us too many heals and buttons to manage (because we know Blizzard wants to keep the game somewhat simple or casual too) I can see many PuG holy paladins spamming all of their heals real quick and "blowing their loads" so to speak, And that would hardly be a casual way to handle it. 

 

Okay this one will be fun to go over and then we can move on to new talents. All paladins will now have a new resource. Holy Power. here's what we got from the Dev chat

A. All of the paladin specializations will make use of a new resource called Holy Power. Holy Power accumulates from using Crusader Strike, Holy Shock, and some other talents. Holy Power can be consumed to augment a variety of abilities, including:

• An instant mana-free heal: Word of Glory
• A buff to increase holy damage done: Inquisition
• A massive physical melee attack for Retribution paladins: Templar’s Verdict
• Holy Shield’s duration is now extended by Holy Power
• Divine Storm’s damage is now increased by Holy Power

 

So, I did forget to mention a heal, Word Of Glory? oh sorry, here you go this is the snipit of info we have thus far on this heal

Word of Glory: Consumes all Holy Power to heal a friendly target for a specific amount per application of Holy Power (0 mana cost, 0 cooldown, instant cast).

Not the best info thats for sure, but an interesting idea this "Holy Power" We'll see how it plays out in the following months and weather or not it'll make it Live or not.

So glad the hunter's no longer use mana because the next would've broken their hearts.

Judgement of Wisdom is Removed from the game....... Completely...... Gone! finished! Over!

Instead we now have a Judgement of Light that also have the anti flee ability of Judgment of Justice.... oh Justice is gone too. Here is the dev chat snipit.

Q: If Judgement of Wisdom is being removed from the game, are paladins getting a new Judgement so we don't all have to use Judgement of Light?

 
A. There will only be one Judgement spell. This spell places a single debuff on the target with the effects currently associated with Judgement of Light and Judgement of Justice. The Judgement of Wisdom effect has been retired completely.

I would like to bring up that Seal swapping (along with the glyph swapping) is done. No more going to light on Valithria and changing glyphs. Because the old Seals of Wisdom and Light are gone! We now have a combined one, Seal Of Insight. Here's the ability text

Fills the Paladin with divine power for 30 min, giving each single-target melee attack a chance to heal the Paladin for [0.15*AP+0.15*SPH] and restore 0% of the paladin's maximum mana. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time.
Unleashing this Seal's energy will deal [1+0.25*SPH+0.16*AP] Holy damage to an enemy.

Talents! I know I know this is a long blog but there's a lot to discuss, plus I have a surprise ending!

We have a new tree, it's 31 points now (like everyone else) and it's been changed around a bit. Firstly head on over to MMO-Champion's Talent Tree For Paladins This is where I'll be pulling info from for this next part. Everything in here is just what's in the beta thus far and if very much so subject to change at a moments notice.

Ok so as I said subject to change at a moments notice right? so what happens the day I spent 2 hours typing this up? They fully change the tallents........ For Fuck SAKE! Anyhow here's the latest build of talents, this is updated as of build 12604. This time around I'm just going to comment on the tier of talents and abilities, so it will be easier to edit later on.

Tier 1 Talents

It would seem that they're trying to make you a super effective healer right off the bat now in this tree. Increased haste from judgments and improved healing on people you heal and who heal you will make for a very useful healer in an early dungeon or with a group for questing.

Sanctified Light (2 points)

Increases the critical effect chance of your Judgment, Holy Shock, and Word of Glory by 6/12%

Divinity (3 points)

Increases the healing done by you, and all healing effects on you by 2/4/6%

Judgments Of The Pure (3 points)

Your Judgment Spell increases your casting and melee haste by 3/6/9% for 1 minute

Tier 2 Talents

Once again making you a very effective healer in this tier, with a tank CD in LoH and improving your heals by up to 12% this tier is a healers dream... but if you're out soloing stuff you still get 12% more damage from Holy Shock, and the improved melee hast from Judgments of the pure in the first tier. So maybe with Crusader strike as well leveling Holy wont be the most terrible experience of all time anymore.

Clarity Of Purpose (3 points)

Reduces the casting time of your Holy Light and Divine Light by 0.1/0.2/0.3 seconds

Improved Lay On Hands (2 points)

Grants the target of your Lay on Hands spell 10/20% reduced physical damage taken for 15 sec. In addition, the cooldown for your Lay on Hands spell is reduced by 2/4 min

Healing Light (3 points)

Increases the amount healed by your Word of Glory, Holy Light, Flash of Light, Divine Light and the effectiveness of Holy Shock spells by 10/20/30%

Tier 3 Talents

What makes it easier to either heal or solo stuff than free crits amirite? One could say with Illumination, Divine Favor and Infusion Of Light that tier 3 talents are Critical to the holy tree.......  ok ok I'll stop with the jokes and move onto the spells. In all seriousness Enlightened Judgments has been one of my favorite talents for quite some time. 40 yd judgment who can complain? but now 100% hit conversion from your spirit is just fantastic.

Illumination (3 Points)

After getting a critical effect from your abilities you gain mana equal to 10/20/30% of the base cost of the spell.

Divine Favor (1 point)

Increases your chance to critically hit with your next Word of Glory, Holy Shock, Flash of Light, Holy Light or Divine Light by 100%.
Instant, 1 min cooldown

Infusion Of Light (2 points)

Your Holy Shock critical hits reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light by 0.75/1.5 sec.

Enlightened Judgments (2 points)

Increases the range of your Judgement spell by 15/30 yds and grants you hit rating equal to 50%/100% of any Spirit gained from items or effects.

Tier 4 Talents

Alright this tier is all about utility at it's finest which is what makes a Holy Pally that much more unique of a healer. Beacon is an ability that if a Pally doesn't have right now their a joke. Here's something new though! Speed of Light! First off reduces the CD of HH to 30 seconds (down from 1 min) then adds a rocket boots type function to it. Which screams to me "Use this and run around like a chicken with your head cut off to the entire raid... Hell Elapsed pop your actual Rocket Boots and make it that much faster!" Seems like this may be a fun heal now. Oh this is also the tier where a pally gets the ability to cleanse magic. Good news! lol

Beacon Of Light (1 point)

The target becomes a Beacon of Light to all members of your party or raid within a 60 yard radius. Each heal you cast on party or raid members will also heal the Beacon for 50% of the amount healed. Only one target can be the Beacon of Light at a time. Lasts 1 min.
6% of base mana, 60 yd range, Instant cast

Speed Of Light (3 points)

Casting Holy Shock grants 5/10/30% spell haste for your next Flash of Light, Holy Light or Divine Light, and casting Healing Hands grants you 10/20/60% movement speed for 10 sec. Also lowers the cooldown on Healing Hands by 10/20/30 sec at all times.

Sacred Cleansing (1 point)

Your Cleanse spell now also dispels 1 Magic effect.

Tier 5 Talents

Ok pure utility here, nothing to improve your healing or ability to heal. Starting with my favorite Aura Mastery, now up from 4 seconds to 6! (it started at 10 back when it came out) Very important ability when it comes to a raid wide damage from something our auras can help resist. Also a nice speed increase when on a mount. Improved Conc Aura hasn't changed and is the only improved aura still in the game really. And the new one in this build.... Denounce...... a free exorcism instantly after every critical heal...... this seems more like a 5 man or leveling ability to me. I understand they want to add some damage abilities for healers and whatnot.... but in a raiding environment as it stands now I would hate to see a holy pally with this talent. a waste of points and if their using the free pop then a waste of a GCD. 

Aura Mastery (1 point)

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 6 sec.
Instant, 2 min cooldown

Denounce (2 Points)

You have a 50/100% chance when any of your Holy spells get a critical effect to make your next Exorcism spell instant and cost no mana.

Improved Concentration Aura (3 points)

Increases the effect of your Concentration Aura by an additional 5/10/15% and while any Aura is active reduces the duration of any Silence or Interrupt effect used against an affected group member by 10/20/30%. The duration reduction does not stack with any other effects.

Tier 6 Talents

2nd to the last tier we have a new talent in the tree, so new it's not yet implimented (NYI) This one is Tower Of Radiance. Which is fairly nice so that if you heal your beacon you can generate holy power, so let's say the tank is your beacon (as it most likely will stay in this next one) and 50% of heals isn't cutting it, or maybe the raid/party isn't taking damage only the tank is. You can get some holy power ready to pop that bonus heal we have now for an oh shit moment coming up. Oh and Blessed Life which hasn't changed at all. A very useful PvP talent but we'll see if it's something we'll use our points on this time around for PVE.

Tower Of Radiance (3 points)

Directly healing the target of your Beacon of Light has a 33/66/100% chance to generate Holy Power.

Blessed Life (2 Points)

All attacks against you have a 5/10% chance to cause half damage.

 Tier 7 Talent

Ok and the Pièce de résistance The Final Talent in the tree (as of the current build) Light Of Dawn. Our cone heal.... Looks pretty cool and like I said earlier sounds like our chain heal or our bomb the melee heal. Should be a cool one to play with thats for sure.

Light Of Dawn (1 point)

Send a wave of healing energy before you, healing all friendly targets up to 30 yards away for 1832.7 to 2239.97.
21% of base mana, Instant cast, 30 sec cooldown

And those are your holy talents! 

What I didn't note were the ret talents that will help healing an incredible amount. It seems as for now that the prot tree would be a bad choice for any leftover points. Ret tree just offers too much for Holy with these talents

Rule Of Law (3 points)

Increases the critical strike effect chance of your Crusader Strike and Holy Light by 5/10/15%.

Crusade (3 points)

Increases the damage and healing of your Crusader Strike, Hammer of the Righteous, Templar's Verdict, and Holy Shock by 10/20/30%.

Conviction (3 points)

Gives you a 1/2/3% bonus to damage and healing for 30 sec after causing a critical effect from a weapon swing, spell, or ability. This effect stacks up to 3 times.

Not sure we'll be able to full spec into these or not but they all are SUPER useful healing talents and really seem to be the only way to go after you're out of the holy tree

Oh for your little Surprise you've been waiting for

 

New Glyph

The only new glyph we are ready to announce right now is the Glyph of Divine Shield, which reduces the cast time of your Hearthstone whenever Divine Shield is active.

That's Right!!!! A bubble Hearth Glyph!!!! .........dear god the humor in this is ridiculous.

 

Alright tell me what you think, what are the new changes you see being class makers or breakers for us.