What Holy Paladins Need to Know for 4.0.1

*** All content copyright © Kurn’s Corner, 2010. Reproduction of this guide in full or in part without express permission from the author (“Kurn”), represents copyright infringment and violation of copyright law. Please, if you like this guide, link to it, do not copy it. ***

*Small updates on Monday, October 18th, 2010 – Spell coefficients, a note about Enlightened Judgements vs. Paragon of Virtue*

*Update on Monday, November 22, 2010 – Glyph section somewhat out of date, links to 4.0.3a post.*

With 4.0.1 here as of Tuesday, October 12th, there are several things every single holy paladin absolutely needs to know. I’m going to try to break this down into TALENTS/SPELLSGEAR/STATS and GLYPHS. With regards to gemming, both Runed Cardinal Rubies and Brilliant King’s Ambers turn into Brilliant Cardinal Rubies, giving us 20 intellect. We can no longer gem for spellpower. I’m not changing out my gems quite yet, but as we gain levels, we might want to re-examine our gemming.

TALENTS/SPELLS

1) We cannot spec 31/5/5 at launch, because we only get 36 talents at 80. We are not going to be balanced for content at 80 with only 36 talents to spend. Assuming the talent trees stay the same, we have to drop 31 points into holy and then have a tough choice to make. Where do we put the remaining five talents?

Our only real choices:

0-3/3 Divinity: 0%/2%/4%/6% extra healing done to and by us. This is the same talent as the one that exists on live today, only it’s three talent points instead of five.

0-2/2 Eternal Glory: 0%/15%/30% chance for our Word of Glory not to consume Holy Power. This is an amazing talent that allows us to throw out more mana-free heals.

0-3/3 Crusade: 0%/10%/20%/30% extra healing (and damage) on Holy Shock (and lots of damage stuff by 30%). I kid you not, Holy Shock is an amazing spell in Cataclysm. 30% extra healing to it is not insignificant.

0-2/2 Improved Judgement: 0/10/20 extra yards on the range of Judgement. Combined with the extra 5/10 yards on Enlightened Judgements in the holy tree, we are looking at regaining our 40 yard range by dropping two points here.

My recommendations:

3/3 Divinity: 6% flat increase on healing. Do it.

0/2 Eternal Glory: Mana matters, but is not as huge an issue at 80 as it is at 85. The mana costs at 80 are not huge.

From a very early beta build:

Flash of Light: 1658
Holy Light: 263
Divine Light: 1842

Holy Light did get bumped to 9% of base mana sometime after I got these values, which is about 396 mana at level 80. I’m not sure if these values are even still remotely accurate. However, I know that mana wasn’t a huge problem until I hit 82-83. Bear in mind that a lot of things have changed since I was level 80 in beta and I might change my mind on this, but based on the trees right now and my beta experience so far, Eternal Glory doesn’t need our extremely precious two points. If mana is terrible, this should get consideration, but the level 80 values weren’t too bad.

2/3 Crusade: No, really, my hand to God, Holy Shock is used constantly. Holy Shock reduces cast time on FoL, HL and DL and is not an insignificant heal itself. We want Holy Shock to hit as hard as possible. Which means…

0/2 Improved Judgement: I hate that I’m not picking this up, but we’re out of freaking points and we have the base distance of 10 yards on the judgements and an extra 10 yards over in holy. Plus, there’s no more Judgement of Light or Judgement of Wisdom. Judgement is seriously JUST damage and to proc Judgements of the Pure. Judging is now a selfish thing that you do once a minute, so it’s not worth it, with so few points available to us, to drop even a single point here.

So, as of right now, my recommended spec for 4.0.1 is:

31/3/2

Bear in mind that 2/2 Enlightened Judgements can be swapped to 1/2 and you can grab 2/2 Paragon of Virtue, although I think the range is a better choice for us right now in Wrath content.

2) The Holy Power Resource.
I nearly forgot to mention this, actually. Holy Power is a secondary resource, meaning it’s used alongside mana, not instead of it.

As you can see, you can have 0, 1, 2 or 3 charges of Holy Power.

For the moment, the only thing that a holy paladin can really use Holy Power for is to heal with our new heal, Word of Glory. Word of Glory with 1 charge of Holy Power heals for less than 2 charges, which heals for less than 3 charges. Word of Glory is an instant-cast heal that is basically a clone of Holy Shock, only there’s no cooldown and it doesn’t use mana. It’s solely dependent on Holy Power.

How do you generate Holy Power?

a) Crusader Strike, which is now baseline for all paladins. (This will be, admittedly, not something we probably use to generate Holy Power all that often.)

b) Using Holy Shock, which is now a passive just for picking holy as your spec. Every time you use Holy Shock, you get a charge of Holy Power.

c) Directly healing your Beacon with Flash of Light, Holy Light or Divine Light. Doing so generates one charge of Holy Power, if you’re specced for 3/3 Tower of Radiance. And you should be.

3) There is no more Flash of Light spec/style, no more Holy Light spec/style. These distinctions are gone. You cannot spam Flash of Light. It is expensive in the new Cataclysmic world. You cannot spam Divine Light, our new big heal, which is sort of equivalent to Wrath’s Holy Light. It’s also expensive. Holy Light is dirt cheap, but heals for itty bitty chunks. We need to adjust to our new heals – the potency of Holy Shock, the weakness of Holy Light, the cost of Flash of Light and the additions of Divine Light, Word of Glory and Light of Dawn. Holy Radiance only comes into play at 83, so we can ignore that for the moment. (But it’s a lot of fun.)

4) Mana matters. We have lost Illumination. Seal of Wisdom is gone, replaced with Seal of Insight, which works a bit like Seals of Light and Wisdom combined, but procs from Seal of Insight only grant us 4% of *base* mana, not *maximum* mana the way Seal of Wisdom did. Further, Divine Plea is nerfed: 10% of mana over 15 seconds, two minute cooldown, reduces healing done by 50% while active. This can be glyphed to 15% of mana back, but that’s still a huge change. We cannot rely on it the way we have throughout this entire expansion. Nor can we rely on Innervates — your druid companions will almost certainly be using this on themselves. Innervate will also only work off the casting druid’s maximum mana, so feral Innervates will be useless. Even Replenishment has been changed. Instead of 1% of maximum mana per 5 seconds, it’s 1% of maximum mana per 10 seconds. What’s that? Mana Tide Totem will still be awesome? HAH. It will now increase party members’ Spirit by 200% for 12 seconds, on a 3-minute cooldown.

I say again, mana matters.

5) Beacon of Light only heals for 50% of what you heal others for. That’s right, the OP awesomeness of our beacon is gone. Combined with the Tower of Radiance talent, it’s clear that we are no longer going to want to set a beacon on someone and just ignore that target except for refreshing beacon, as we currently do.

6) Sacred Shield is gone and its effect has been rolled into our mastery. Mastery is a new stat that all 30 specs can make use of and each spec has its own. Ours is called Illuminated Healing and it means that when we cast a heal on someone, we create a shield the size of 8% of the heal on them, which lasts for six seconds or until it’s been consumed by damage. The 8% scales up with more mastery, which is increased by getting gear with mastery rating on it. Word has it that these shields our heals create are supposed to “roll” or at least not have a smaller shield replace a bigger shield.

7) Blessings have changed. For starters, Blessing of Wisdom is gone. You can find its mana regen properties in Blessing of Might, along with the attack power bonus. Blessing of Kings now only adds 5% to various stats and adds some token resistence to magic schools. Kings does NOT stack with Mark of the Wild. They are identical. Further, these are all 60-minutes and raid-wide and require no reagents.

8) Divine Intervention is gone. Farewell, old friend.

9) Resistance auras have been merged together. So have resistance totems.

10) In case you missed it above, Judgement NO LONGER applies the Judgement of Light OR the Judgement of Wisdom debuff to mobs. Goodbye, passive healing and goodbye passive mana regen.

11) Lay on Hands cooldown reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes.

12) Our spell coefficients have changed. Thanks to Ophelie from The Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon for doing all the scary math for us. Here are the new spell coefficients.

GEAR/STATS

1) In order to benefit from our armor specialization, you need to wear all plate. Wearing all plate grants us an extra 5% intellect. This is godly, since our spellpower is based on our intellect. Do it.

I’m currently wearing two mail pieces: Heroic Unclean Surgical Gloves and Earthsoul Boots. I plan to swap to Gauntlets of Overexposure from the Emblem of Frost vendor, which are identical to Fallen Lord’s Handguards from regular Lady Deathwhisper on 25m.

Ideally, Halion will drop his boots, Foreshadow Steps, (although Walks and I both know these are clearly a myth and do not actually exist). If they don’t drop for me by the time 4.0.1 drops, I will probably switch to my old 258 boots, Boots of the Courageous from Icehowl in TOGC 25, since I didn’t get the Protectors of Life crafted. The Earthsouls were better. Anyways, obviously not everyone is killing Halion with regularity, not everyone is killing Deathwhisper on 25 every week, so your options may be a bit more limited.

I would be inclined to say switch to plate however you can, but keep in mind things like haste (see point #2) as you do so.

2) The amount of haste we want is going to rise. Bear in mind that Judgements of the Pure is dropping from 15% haste to 9% haste and the 3% haste from Swift Retribution/Improved Moonkin is GONE. That means the soft cap for haste that you want to aim for just jumped up from 676 to something like 1017 haste or thereabouts for a 1s GCD, given JotP + 5% spell haste (from a variety of sources — moonkin aura, shadowform’s aura and a shaman’s Wrath of Air). *** This number changes to 894 haste in 4.0.3a ***

That’s a large number, I know. Do not panic.

Why did we want to hit a 1s GCD in Wrath of the Lich King? We had a lot of spells that we needed to cast that were instant. Things like Beacon of Light, Sacred Shield, judging regularly, using Divine Shield and Divine Sacrifice… these are all on the GCD and with 1s GCDs, we’re able to hit these and get back to healing that much faster.

With the removal of Sacred Shield, the movement of Divine Guardian way out of our reach, the fact that we only need to judge once a minute, can we afford GCDs that are longer than 1s? Maybe. Though we’re losing Sacred Shield and judging 2-3 times a minute, we are gaining Holy Shock as a useful spell, which, thanks to Speed of Light, also gives us 30% haste to our next Flash of Light, Holy Light or Divine Light.

This haste can offset the longer cast times of Holy Light (3 seconds base, 2.5 seconds with 3/3 Clarity of Purpose, no more Light’s Grace!) and Divine Light, but it means using Holy Shock pretty much on cooldown.

We also gain Word of Glory, which is essentially a clone of Holy Shock, only it’s dependent on Holy Power instead of mana. Just like Holy Shock, Word of Glory is also instant. We also have Light of Dawn as our 31-point talent, which is an instant, conal heal that doesn’t heal for a ton, but can hit a lot of people at once. So, we lose:

– Sacred Shield (1/minute)
– Frequent judgements (2-3/minute)
– Divine Sacrifice/Guardian (1-2/fight)

Our commonly-used instants are now:

– Beacon of Light (refreshing every 60-90 seconds, depending on glyph)
– Holy Shock (6s cooldown, glyph no longer lowers cooldown, more if Daybreak procs)
– Judgement (1/minute)
– Word of Glory (when 3 Holy Power is accumulated)
– Light of Dawn (situational, but up to every 30 seconds)

So is it important to maintain as close to a 1s GCD as possible? Yes, I would say so. However, the other major benefit to haste rating is the lowering of cast times on various heals and that’s where Holy Shock and Speed of Light come in very handy. That’s why you shouldn’t panic. A 1.2s GCD isn’t as optimal as a 1s GCD, obviously, but don’t panic because your casted heals after a Holy Shock are still going to be pretty snazzy.

Some early beta build numbers are below. Bear in mind that in order to proc Speed of Light, you have to cast Holy Shock before the casted spell.

With 1026 haste only:

Flash of Light: 1.14s cast
Holy Light & Divine Light: 1.68s cast

With 1026 haste and JotP:

Flash of Light: 1.05s
Holy Light & Divine Light: 1.54

With 1026 haste and Speed of Light (3/3):

Flash of Light: 0.879s
Holy Light & Divine Light: 1.29

With 1026 haste and JotP AND Speed of Light:

Flash of Light: 0.806s
Holy Light & Divine Light: 1.18s

A Speed of Light-hasted Holy Light casting in 1.18s is even a bit faster than I currently get on live.

I’m going to do my best to maintain my current haste rating of 1036, which I add to with 40 haste food. However, as previously noted, I need to replace my boots and my gloves with plate equivalents. IF I get the boots from Halion, I’ll be at 1016 haste. If I don’t, I’ll be at 1006, since I’ll drop to my TOGC 25 boots. (I ALWAYS keep everything I wore in the previous tier, just in case I need a resist set or something.)

3) Librams are now stat-sticks. That’s right, we get our very own ranged weapon slot for our relics (and many will no longer be class-specific in Cataclysm!) and they add to our stats. What this means is that, almost certainly, the higher the ilvl libram or relic you have, the better stats are on it. Pallies with the Libram of Renewal will want to get Libram of Veracity which turns into this lovely thing or, if you can spare the Emblems of Frost, the Libram of Blinding Light. (I know. I kind of died inside.) But it turns into this:

GLYPHS

*** This section is outdated for 4.0.3a, please see the 4.0.3a post for updates on some Glyphs and some Glyph choices ***

Glyphs are changing. They’re not going to be consumed any longer, but rather learned. We also have a new kind of glyph: Prime glyphs, in addition to Major and Minor.

Keeva at Tree Bark Jacket says that we’ll get 1 Prime/Major/Minor at 25, 50 and 75, so we’ll have all 9 slots at 80.

What this means for holy paladins is that we want to get all of our glyphs and we want them ASAP.

First off, what glyphs do we want?

Prime Glyphs, by the way, are supposed to be the no-brainers of the glyph world and they exist in order to let us be more choosy in terms of major glyphs, while minors are supposed to be more cosmetic.

PRIME

1) Glyph of Divine Favor. Divine Favor has changed, as you can see by the talent in the talent tree. This glyph extends the duration of Divine Favor by 10 seconds. This is lovely.

2) Glyph of Holy Shock. No longer does this reduce the cooldown of Holy Shock by 1 second. This now increases its crit by 5%.

3) Glyph of Seal of Insight. This works just like the current Glyph of Seal of Light. While you have Seal of Insight active, all your healing is increased by 5%.

4) Glyph of Word of Glory. Increases the healing done by Word of Glory by 10%. Get this.

I would start out with Holy Shock, Seal of Insight and Word of Glory and eventually get enough crit to drop Holy Shock and pick up Divine Favor.

MAJOR

1) Glyph of Beacon of Light. Unchanged from live, it makes your Beacon last 90 seconds instead of 60 seconds. Yoink!

2) Glyph of Cleansing. Reduces the cost of your Cleanse by 20%. Not something I would personally invest in.

3) Glyph of Divine Plea. This used to be for prot pallies, but this is ours, now. This allows you to get an extra 5% mana back when you use Divine Plea, so you’re getting 15% mana back every two minutes instead of 10% mana back.

4) Glyph of Divinity. Same as on live, will grant you mana back and grants double the mana it normally does to its target. Actually has a spot in my glyph book, now.

5) Glyph of Light of Dawn. Reduces the cooldown of Light of Dawn by 10 sec and the amount healed by 20%. I wouldn’t touch this. LoD already heals for such a small amount (3k or so per target) that we do not need LESS healing done more often. I don’t think, anyways. This is a situational glyph, but I’ve been glyphed for it more often than not. This is golden on Infest on the Lich King, although this spell and its glyph are both changing in 4.0.3a.

6) Glyph of the Long Word. Your Word of Glory heals for 50% less up front, but provides an 50% additional healing over 6 seconds.

So what I would take here is Glyph of Beacon of Light, Glyph of Divine Plea and Glyph of Divinity. I’m not a fan of Glyph of the Long Word.

MINOR

1) Glyph of Lay on Hands. Reduces the cooldown of Lay on Hands by 2m. Since Lay on Hands is a 10m cooldown now, this brings it to 8m. Lovely.

2) Glyph of Insight. Reduces the mana cost of Seal of Insight by 50%. Doesn’t sound like much, but at 85, that’s like, 1500 mana savings or something, since the seal costs over 3000 mana.

3) Glyph of Blessing of Kings. Reduces the mana cost of Blessing of Kings by 50%.

4) Glyph of Blessing of Might. Reduces the mana cost of Blessing of Might by 50%.

Obviously, Glyph of Lay on Hands, particularly since I recommend Glyph of Divinity. The other two are up to you, but those are the only minors a holy would find at all useful.

Also, El (of El’s Extreme Anglin’) says that there are several glyphs that will be turned into new ones.

Here’s the conversion chart.

Among them, some that affect holy paladins:

Flash of Light -> Word of Glory
Holy Light -> Divine Favor
Seal of Light -> Seal of Insight
Seal of Wisdom -> Light of Dawn (so many people will have this — make sure to replace it!)


Okay, I think that sums it up. It’s a long post, I know, but I will definitely update this post going forward, since there will undoubtedly be changes to the beta and PTR before 4.0.1 launches and probably some 4.0.1 changes that will, uh, surprise us…

And for those of you who like to tank in your spare time (or tank most of the time and heal in your spare time), here’s the Righteous Defense guide to Everything you need to know about Prot and 4.0.1 at 80.

Please bear in mind that this guide is somewhat out of date as of the launch of 4.0.3a. Please see that post for updates.

*** All content copyright © Kurn’s Corner, 2010. Reproduction of this guide in full or in part without express permission from the author (“Kurn”), represents copyright infringment and violation of copyright law. Please, if you like this guide, link to it, do not copy it. ***

41 Replies to “What Holy Paladins Need to Know for 4.0.1”

  1. Great post, as with just about everything else you write I’m going to go nail this to the inside of my Holy Pallys’ eyelids. :)

    Also, awesome link with the glyph conversions!

  2. So glyph on long word sounds a lot like the original glyph of flash of light waaaaaay back in the beginning of wotlk (long time ago I know :P) and I had experimented with it back in the day. Bear in mind this was back when flash of light and sacred shield had no synergy. I may be tempted to try out the long word glyph for a few reasons, first of all its identical to holy shock and don’t feel a need for it to do the same thing having a hot makes it more intersecting, and second its a hot something we have lost with the loss of sacred shield. Not saying it will be the best glyph but I’ll experiment, granted i was one of the few who played with the flash of light glyph too heh.

  3. You have the exact same gearing problems as me. The heroic mail gloves, but at least I still have the emblem gloves banked and Earthsoul Boots, Sadly I got those very early on and de’ed the 258 boots. I also did not bid dkp on the 277 boots from dreamwalker when they last dropped 6 weeks ago as I was next in line for a tier token. The boots from halion are indeed a myth so its 245 relentless for me:(

  4. @ Kurn
    When Cataclysm was first anounced I made sure to go for all 264 Plate gear.
    I have a question, if almost all boss fights are about 10 minutes how many times do you use DP?
    I am thinking DP like just a penalty with no good returns worth using. A LoH would be a free DL with mana returned.
    My other question is CRIT on my level 80 gear is 42% and Raid buffed over 50% so how does Crit hold up against other stats, as Haste just means you use mana faster but Crit returns bigger heals and HP?
    So is Crit our secondary or third stat?

  5. Someone should make a post like this for every spec <3 I'm not playing my pally much these days, so my thanks go in particular for that prot link, I sent it to my friend who was worried about her tank.

  6. Great write up Kurn many thanks.

    Regarding the AoE heals how often have you found yourself using them? The changes to the single target heals I can get my head around, all it will take is a week or so before I know what heals for what intuitively, but AoE heals not so much.

  7. Thanks for putting this together. I wasn’t in the beta so when I logged into the PTR, I panicked! Hopefully this will help guide me through.

    Also totally agree about the Halion boots. They’re only on the loot list to mock us, they don’t actually exist. Yay for my ToC Boots of the Courageous!

  8. Great consolidation of facts. It’s great finding all your holy information with some flavor text all in one spot.

    The Glyph of the Long Word is interesting. The wording is somewhat cryptic though. Since it just mentions 50%. I’m assuming what it does, is cut your WoG in half into two heals. One that’s a direct heal and the other that’s a hot. Both equivalent in power adding up to the effectiveness of a regular WoG? Otherwise, 50% as direct and then 50% of that as a hot, is only a 75% WoG heal. Anyway, I think that wording could be worked out better. I even thought that maybe it was 50% direct and then 100% (the second half of WoG plus that “additional 50%”) as a hot, so 150% heal in total. If overheal is a concern, this would be an interesting glyph but when cata launches probably not so much. Also, does the hot portion tick on the BoL as well? If not, that’s healing lost to the BoL.

    Very much appreciate the prot link. I’ve toyed around with prot for faster queues or to help friends knock out achievements. So thanks for that!

    Keep up the good work. I wish I were still raiding content and could get the halion boots and other plate upgrades. But then again, that’d just make me OP ;)

  9. I’ve been trying to get rid of Glyph of LoD on the PTR so I can get a better feel for the numbers. On the other hand, it just ticks me off no end when you see people trying to charge 4K gold for Vanishing Powder. I realize the gold is useless, so I might as well spend it all down to nothing, but it’s the principal of the thing.

    Question: Holy Mending, the old T8 (I think) 2 piece set bonus, is supposed to be back in the game as a lvl 81 trainable. Does the fact that I hear nobody at all talk about mean that it’s not been implemented, or that it’s so lame that nobody even notices it?

    Still waiting for something positive with Arbiter of the Light…

  10. @jeffo from what I’ve read holy mending is just that the t8 bonus; there were never plans to implement it but mmo champions has an error reporting it as a new ability. I could be wrong however but I think its just a bug as that is what multiple ppl have said and I haven’t found any blue posts or patch notes about it to back it up.

  11. @Rahmiel im assuming from the wording of glyph of long word tthat it works exactly like the original glyph of flahs of light in the beggining of wrath which healed 50% less up front and then 150% over 12 secs; the glyph was later changed to the current 5% crit version.

  12. @Cyranor
    Yeah, I remember it. I just hate to assume that though. It’s entirely possible but the wording just doesn’t seem to relate exactly what it does. 50% less upfront and an additional 50% over 6 sec. I’m confounded as to exactly what the hot portion is in relation to an unglyphed WoG just going by that wording.

    Barring any changes though, I’ll likely pick up Crusade and EG/IJ as opposed to Divinity. Divinity is just a flat bonus modifier, nothing special about it. EG/IJ and crusade all tie into mechanics/feel. I may respec, but for playing purposes, I’d like to have my rotation/feel down on the playstyle as opposed to effectiveness (which can be made up for in number adjustments/talents/equipment).

  13. Kurn,

    Do you have any thoughts about professions for Holy paladins in 4.0/Cataclysm?

    I’m gathering materials for either blacksmithing or engineering, but I haven’t chosen one yet. Can blacksmiths still put extra sockets in, and do they have anything else? Just looking at Wowhead, engineering seems pretty appealing, with the extra mana from pots on belts and the int boost to gloves.

  14. @Rahmiel yeah I’ll agree the wording is a bit wonky but the upfront implies that its just 50% up front so the hot portion would but full effect plus another 50% or 150% idk that’s just how I interpret it, I’ll definitely try it out though to get a feel for it, I hate the idea of two identical abilities with just different resources, assuming vanishing powder isn’t outrageously priced I can always remove it.

  15. @Cyranor
    Well, if that glyph essentially turns our WoG into a 200% heal after 6 seconds *AND* that hot xfers to the BoL target.. that could be an excellent glyph!! Basically doubles the amount of healing it does. Can we wait that 6 seconds? I would.. think so. Just means WoG would become more of a raid healing tool than a throughput tank heal. Very interesting.. very interesting…

    If the hot does not xfer though, I doubt I’d use the glyph.

  16. Rhidach – Similarly, excellent resource you put up. I’ve given it to my brother, who wants to tank on his pally in Cata. :) (and, of course, linked it here for more public consumption.)

    I love El. I think she is awesome!

    Fannon – It’s not scary, although it’s a little overwhelming in terms of information. Took me ages to remember about kings/mark on beta. :/ Times, they are a-changing.

    Cyranor – Yep, I remember that original FoL glyph! (Long time ago to me means, you know, when I was killing Lucifron on a weekly basis…) It’s an interesting glyph for WoG, but the reason I don’t like it very much right now is because when I cast Word of Glory it’s basically because I need that entire heal and I need it *now*. Sort of like… if a fish is out of water and suffocating, you immerse it in all the water you can. You don’t put it in a half inch of water and then slowly pour more into the container. That’s a horrible metaphor, but that’s kind of how it feels. If you do play with it, please do share your findings!

    Ngita – I wonder if anyone’s seen those damn 271 boots! haha! My current guild did RS last night and I’d promised the boots to Walks because he’s got the 245 TOC boots and I have the 258s. And yet, no drop.

    The Dreamwalker boots are okay — I have a pair for my spellpower set — but the loss of haste is very painful, given the amount of haste we need to maintain a 1s GCD. I still think that haste is a very important stat, but with Divine Favor and the use of Holy Shock, it’s not so much of a big deal for actual cast times on casted spells.

    Richard – I made sure to hang on to my old gear and did think about picking up new gear that’s only plate, but I still would have bid on the heroic Belt of the Blood Nova (mail) for example. I didn’t want to not min-max as appropriate in current content, especially while pushing 25-man heroics. Glad that you’ve got yourself decked out in plate, though. I always feel more comfy in plate!

    Now, are you asking me about beta-related boss fights or 4.0.1-related boss fights? As it stands on live, I use Divine Plea maybe 2-3 times on most fights. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I have had to use Divine Plea (usually with wings as my offset) a couple of times in level 85 dungeon boss fights, but not that often. Usually, we’re dead or the boss is about dead. I WILL pop a mana potion, though.

    I have no idea what things are going to be like in current content with 4.0.1, but I’m scared of the amount of damage the raid is going to take and be unable to heal through.

    I think that Divine Plea still has merit, particularly glyphed, but I think you really have to be desperate. None of this pleaing at 80% mana so you end up with a full mana bar. I think you’ll really need to wait for times to use it wisely — like Bonestorm on Marrowgar, air phase on BQL, etc.

    I still like using LOH on, you know, the tanks. ;D But self LOH on an 8m cooldown isn’t a bad idea as it goes.

    Haste is still an amazing throughput stat. Crit is, in my opinion, an “okay” stat. Remember that our crit isn’t going to change too much until we start levelling, whereas our needed haste WILL change due to buff changes. Without Illumination, crit is a throughput stat — Conviction adds up to 9% healing through crits. But crits have no meaning when it comes to Holy Power.

    I would say our stats are:

    Intellect, followed by haste, followed by crit, followed by spirit. Remember there’s no more MP5. I honestly don’t know where to PUT spirit, but the only synergy any of our talents have with spirit is hit rating, whereas bigger heals (and crits) mean bigger mastery shields, so I’d prioritize spirit as last for right now. (More mathematically-inclined people can prove me wrong. I’d welcome it.)

    Jen – I completely agree that every spec needs a guide! Glad you read it and sent off the prot link to your friend. :)

    Sagan – Thanks! I’m glad you liked it. :)

    The only AOE heal we’ll have at 4.0.1 is Light of Dawn. 30 yard frontal cone — think of Cone of Cold from a mage, only it hits further. It’s disappointing to me, to be honest. It’s seriously 3k. That’s not so bad on live, but we’re all going to get some stam boosts and we’ll see tanks with about 65-75k health WITHOUT an ICC buff. 3k out of 30k is a lot, but 3k out of 45k is not a lot.

    I use LOD when everyone’s clumped together and taking damage. That’s basically it. I’d love to use it in a raid setting, to be honest.

    Ophelie – I do what I can! I hope you find this useful. :) And wow, yet another pally without the Halion boots! We should 25-man raid that dragon with 25 paladins of various specs until he drops our boots!

    Rahmiel – That was the point — a one-stop information post. I’m glad you find it useful! :) As to WoG and the Glyph of the Long Word, I think it’s probably 150%. I’m almost certain that the HoT portion would NOT tick. They’ve been very good at bug squishing things that get transferred. Right now, Protector of the Innocent keeps transferring, but I imagine that’ll be fixed right quick. ;)

    As Cyranor said, I think it’ll work a lot like the original FoL glyph. If I’m not mistaken, this is one glyph that isn’t actually in beta yet, or wasn’t just a little while ago, so they may still be fixing it up.

    I would be remiss if I hadn’t linked Rhidach’s post! My offspec is prot as well and I honestly haven’t done anything prot-like on beta, so it’s a great resource for me, too. :)

    Seriously, let’s all go raid Ruby Sanctum and steal our boots…

    I hear what you’re saying with regards to Eternal Glory and Improved Judgement. It’s a really tough call and we’ll all have to play around with it to see what helps our raids or groups the best. My primary concern right now is that we are not going to be nearly as effective as we are now, which is why I think Divinity is the clear-cut choice.

    jeffo – There are definitely some gougers out there in beta-land! I paid 4000g for a green ring.

    I really think Holy Mending is just the T8 bonus. It’s not on a trainer or anything and I haven’t seen it anywhere. I think it might have been there for a build or two, but it’s gone otherwise.

    Weissbier – I’ve been an Alchemist/Jewelcrafter since Burning Crusade, probably about three years, now. I dropped herbalism for JC and haven’t regretted it. I like the extra potency and duration of my flasks (through Mixology) and I love the dragon’s eye gems and trinkets from JC.

    It’s said that BS/JC is the best raiding profession combination, however I think some of the profession bonuses (specifically the gathering professions) are changing.

    Herblism’s Lifeblood is changing from this version to this version. 240 haste rating for 20 seconds isn’t a lot at 85, but it’s still something.

    Mining and Skinning haven’t had Toughness or Master of Anatomy updated (as far as I can tell), but that’s something to keep in mind.

    Engineering definitely looks to be getting a lot of goodies, but I’d hold off until we get more info, personally.

  17. Just a note, I pulled this off MMO Champ today, regarding build 13131, the only two changes noted for Paladins:

    Holy

    * Speed of Light now grants 10/20% spell haste, up from 5/10%. Now grants 20/40% movement speed, up from 10/20%.
    * Infusion of Light now has an additional effect, Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy Shock by 5/10%.

    I’m not sure how haste works at 85, but on the PTR even without these changes I had some mighty freakin’ fast casts (I have somewhere around 800 haste from gear) when everything’s rolling. That’s without the change to Lifeblood. Woot, more haste! I’ll be a blur!

    We have 5 different talents that either effect spell haste or reduce cast times of specific spells. I’m not sure if I’m going anywhere with that one or not.

    I noticed that Holy Mending is no longer shown on the MMO-Champ site. It was never a huge heal, but every little bit helped.

    Still no change to Arbiter. I think it’s going live as is.

    Wow

  18. Everyone needs to keep in mind the PTR (and 4.0.1 release) at 80 are going to be very different from 4.x at 85. Speed of Light, JotP, and other cast reductions will still be great, but the conversion factor for haste rating will change.

    http://www.wowwiki.com/Haste

    Notice here the rating conversions already. 10 per 1% at 60 all the way to 32.79 per 1% at 80. So 1000 haste won’t go nearly so far at 85.

    Also, Blizzard appears to have figured out stat inflation this time. So instead of creating inflation inadvertently with the later addition of hard modes (and 3 or 4 gear levels per tier) they have mapped out the gear plan in more detail and they know how much of a given rating can appear on gear.

    In Wrath Holy Paladin terms, they could arbitrarily decide that 700 haste rating would be the maximum achievable on gear. This would mean hitting the soft cap in t9 would require gems and enchants while t10 would require almost all BiS.

    Further, there are so many cast time modifiers in Cataclysm that the value of haste will vary from moment to moment. Flash and Holy Light spam is gone, along with the value of large amounts of static haste.

  19. @ Joe Ego & Kurn
    I think this is why Haste at a certain point will not be worth the trouble as the amount you have to get to pay off will just not be worth it. When you hit the soft cap the CRIT will save so much mana over time that you cast less so Haste will just be for emergency. In other words to have more Haste over the soft cap will return less healing then Crit will. This explains the GC posts on Crit taken from Mastery and replaced with shields. If crit stayed we would have stacked crit and outpreformed all other healers. But making us use Haste and Crit will even out the spec, so Crit is equal to Haste. My thoughts on this go with Joe Ego on Haste returns vs Crit returns.

  20. jeffo – That’s kind of odd, because some of that was already implemented. I’ll keep a close eye on any changes, though.

    Joe & Richard – I do not believe I’m putting too much value on haste for 4.0.1. For 4.0.3, the ACTUAL release of Cataclysm, as we level, yes, crit and haste will be much more equal in terms of their importance, in my opinion. Barring any changes, though, haste is still going to be super important at 4.0.1. Our crit ratings aren’t changing substantially at 80 at 4.0.1 and you can still expect to see your 40 or 50% crit, if I’m remembering correctly. It might drop a bit because of the fact that kings and mark won’t stack and kings will only be a 5% increase to stats, so you’ll have a bit less int from buffs, but you SHOULD be making up for that in gear changes.

    Rot-Resistant Breastplate (heroic, live) 139 int
    Rot-Resistant Breastplate (heroic, beta) 158 int

    So that’s +19 int on that chestpiece alone, but the crit remains the same. I noticed a gain in my overall mana when I copied over, so it should cover the changed raid buffs, IMHO.

  21. I’m not making any claims on the value of haste at 80 in 3.3.x or 4.x. I just want to make sure after jeffo’s comment that everyone keeps in mind haste will change at 85. Blizzard said they don’t want any one stat to be more than 20% valued over the others (I think that’s what I read in a Blue post…), but even if they are not able to achieve that balance they still have their hands firmly on the itemization levers.

    With a better tier and gear plan at the start they already know how high we can get. Whether it’s Crit or Haste, if they decide 1500 rating is as high as they want to go then that’s all we’ll get and that’s how everything else will be tuned.

    As for 80, they’ve already said two things:
    1) They want our numbers to be as close as possible to 3.3.x values for 4.0.1.
    2) They’re not horribly worried about the balance of level 80 content at 4.0.1 and beyond.

  22. Joe – I’d love to see a blue post that says they want us to maintain our numbers from 3.3.x into 4.0.1. I don’t see how that’s possible at the moment unless, by numbers, they mean stat numbers versus throughput numbers. Any chance of a link?

    I have definitely seen the post(s) about them not worrying overly much about balancing us at 80. Balance at 85 is the big thing.

    As to haste, crit or any other stat you’d care to name, I think it’ll be very easy for them to monitor what (if anything) we stack because there’s just very little reason for us to drop our armor specialization. On live, I drooled over lots of mail pieces that will not really get my attention in 4.0.1 and beyond. So that’s a good point, although we saw what they did about us stacking int — they nerfed Divine Intellect and Illumination and, uh, that’s it. I can still hit 46k mana if I elixir rather than flask while raid buffed. I don’t want to tempt the fates, but I’d like to see what would trigger that and how they would react vis-a-vis what they feel is necessary for the encounters.

  23. Thank you very much for this guide.
    One quick question though… Given that Holy Shock is far more useful on 4.0.1, would the 4pc t10 bonus be more valuable? The only reason I am asking is because like so many other healadins, I went for the haste on gear thus being more than happy with 2pc t10.

  24. Soze – You’re quite welcome. :) You bring up a very interesting question with regards to the 4pc bonus. If Holy Light is tuned the way it is on beta, it will be hitting for very little, so while .3s off sounds awesome, it’s probably not going to be THAT awesome, particularly with talents like Speed of Light and Infusion of Light procs.

    Since there is no haste on the gloves or on the pants and given my estimation that haste will be even more important over the next two months, I would have to recommend sticking with 2pc T10 and not worrying about 4pc. They HAVE changed the 2pc T10 bonus to work with Divine Favor (since it’s currently Divine Illumination), so that’s intact, at least.

    The only way I would worry about 4pc is if you don’t have plate gloves, chest or pants apart from the tier pieces and you use two of them to make sure you’re wearing all plate. The 4pc bonus would be just that, a nice bonus in addition to wearing all plate. IMHO, of course. :)

  25. Re: converting to similar numbers, it looks like GC referenced output:
    http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/25626455868/wotlk-gt-cata-loss-in-spellpower

    So between 4.0.1 and Cataclysm a lot of output numbers should look similar. The primary caveat being we’re not mages and all Paladin healing spells are changing, so we’re probably the first class to ignore this post and you can hate me for even bringing it up. :)

    I don’t mean to dwell on this topic much, as I believe we should be spending most of our effort at the start just learning our new spells. My main points were that we can’t worry too much about how we work in raids at 80 and that at 85 Blizzard has a vision for us and several dials to tune us in that direction – regardless or in spite of how we tweak. I’ll min-max with the best of them, but I’m not upset about The Great Crit Nerf of 3.1 or the coming Death of Haste/Crit/etc.

    I am very sad, however, about losing Divine Guardian…

  26. Hi Kurn,

    Are you able to post a link to what the 31 talents you would select in Holy would be?
    Apologies if you have this noted elsewhere but was unable to locate this info.
    Much appreciated!

  27. Joe – That’s a very interesting post, thanks for the link. I somehow doubt my Holy Light is still going to hit for 30k crits in ICC, though. ;) I’ll happily eat my words if proven wrong!

    I think, ultimately, we do need to spend the next two months or so adjusting to the new playstyle so that we’re capable of filling a healing role in dungeons while levelling and in heroics before hitting up raids. I worry about the learning curve and I’ve already logged a couple of dozen hours healing on the beta. I really have to recommend everyone try out the PTR to get a feel for things.

    Tugger – I actually linked to the wowhead Cataclysm talent calculator in my post; the link for 31/3/2 points there. Here’s the link for you again:

    http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#sMIbzrduuszhZM

    If you go through my beta build posts, you’ll see my reasoning for taking the various talents I did and where I say some play can come in. :)

  28. Thank you thank you so much for this post! Everywhere I’ve looked for holy paladin advice for 4.0.1, it’s all been doom and gloom. I’m grateful I get some solid advice instead – and now I need to replace my precious mail pieces, damn. Some work to do before the patch drops then, but cheers for removing the impending sense of DOOM I had hanging over my poor paladin’s head.

  29. Lidanya – You’re quite welcome for the post! I’m pretty sure I’m at least a little doomy and gloomy, but I strive to give out useful information, first and foremost.

    I’m still in a wait-and-see mode, truthfully. We’ll see some changes tomorrow and some changes on the 7th of December.

    I don’t like a lot of the changes. I plan to keep rolling with the punches, though, and to keep sharing information with others as Cataclysm draws nearer and eventually launches. :)

  30. Thank you so much for the insightful post and more importantly all the research and time you put in making this a very useful tool and guide. I’m switching my main from my druid to my pally and was worried about all the doom and gloom. Given your post and my experience last evening, it’s very different and yet it’s pretty fun. I did change up my hot keys and everything right before doing a heroic last night which made for a couple of moments of “oh just hit them all till you get a heal off”. After that though it was pretty fun. So, thank you for the great work and effort.
    Cheers!

  31. Wow… just hit 80 like 3 days ago, and I leveled Prot the whole way, and then at 80 i decided to go holy because I enjoy healing. This sucks for me, just once i get the hand of it…. 4.0.1 shows up…. ughh, looks like fun, but is kind of dissapointing

  32. You can actually reforge your gear to get a lot of haste, and even some “mastery”. So the t10 4pc could be modified to give you at least a slice (40% is the max you can pull out of reforging) of the haste its currently missing.

  33. Great post. I especially appreciated the haste numbers, as that’s something I’ve always tried to maximize. However, sadly, apparently Speed of Light will no longer give a cast-time reduction to HL — it only affects Holy Radiance, which we won’t even see until level 83. This is currently on beta realm. Any thoughts on how THAT will affect haste numbers?

    Thanks.
    [GryphonMD]

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