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The Light and How to Swing It: Pre-epic plate healing gear, part 3

Elizabeth Wachowski
Updated ·9 min read

Hmm, this list of pre-epic plate healing gear is becoming quite epic in itself. After we covered the upper body and lower body, it's time to discuss things that are not, technically, made of plate: cloaks, trinkets, weapons, shields and librams. Although I would totally like to have a cloak made of plate (or of PLATES!), and sort of wonder why there aren't armor classes on cloaks. It would keep all those pesky clothies away from our +healing and +spell crit cloaks. Mwahahaha!

Anyway, on to the list, and I promise this is the end of the listiness. The column two weeks from now is going to be "A Field Guide To Bad Paladins", so please, save your eggs and tomatoes for that one.

Back:

  1. Cloak of Whispering Shells: 15 stam, 16 int, 4mp/5, 40 healing. 16% drop from Hydromancer Thespia in Steamvault. A very well-balanced cape for pallies. There's an adequate amount of healing, some of that mp/5 that we suck up like so many juice boxes at recess, the usual suspect of int, and stam for when the tank gets scared and runs away. Plus, it's a high drop rate in an easier instance.

  2. Avian Cloak of Feathers: 18 int, 12 spi, 5mp/5, 42 healing. 11% drop from Talon King Ikiss in Sethekk Halls. Wouldn't an avian cloak automatically be of feathers? Anyway, this has great mp/5 and an adequate amount of healing, but that spirit isn't super-great for pallies.

  3. Apexis Cloak: 15 stam, 15 int, 57 healing. Rep reward at Revered with Ogri'la. Nice cloak, but no mp/5 and a pain to get (all those apexis shards and summoned demons and dragons that no one else ever does ...)

  4. White Remedy Cape: 7mp/5, 59 healing. Crafted by tailors. This costs six primal life and six bolts of imbued netherweave, which isn't that bad -- herbalists will have lots of primal life sitting around, and casters desperate to make their epic sets will probably help you out on making that imbued netherweave. The most healing, but no stats other than mp/5.

  5. Diviner's Cloak: 13 stam, 15 int, 35 healing, 5mp/5. Quest reward from The Horrors Of Pollution in Netherstorm. This is the nicest green cloak out there, and I didn't even know this quest existed! It's what you get when you kill that elite Congealed Void Horror heanging out in eastern Netherstorm next to all those bad ethereals.

Trinkets:

  1. Scarab of the Infinite Cycle: 70 healing; all heals and HOTs have a chance to increase your spell haste rating by 320 for 6 secs. 14% drop from Aeonus in Black Morass. You don't hear a whole lot about spell haste rating when it comes to healing, but with the recent boost to spell haste (and nerf to melee haste!) this can really help keep your tanks alive during raid situations.

  2. Lower City Prayerbook: 70 healing; on-use: heals cost 22 less mana for the next 15 seconds, 1 minute cooldown. Rep reward from revered with Lower City. 22 less mana might not sounds like a lot, but with a one-minute cooldown and a 15-second duration, this can save you some mana, particularly in a Flash-of-Light spamming boss fight or raid. The Wowhead comments show some great macros to use!

  3. Oshu'gun Relic: 53 healing; on-use: 213 healing for 20 secs. 2 minute cooldown. Quest reward from Gava'xi in Nagrand. Okay, this is mostly ranked so high because it's incredibly easy to get, but it's also nice to have at least one on-use trinket that increases your healing for those tough situations.

  4. Shiffar's Nexus-Horn: 30 spell crit; all spell crits have a change to increase damage/healing by 225 for 10 seconds. 12% drop from Harbinger Skyriss in Arcatraz. This might look like a mage trinket on first glance, but due to a healing pally's reliance on crits and its 20% proc rate, it can also be incredible for healing. Just don't take it over a mage if you think he might be prone to fireballing you in the back.

  5. Xi'ri's Gift: 32 crit, on-use: 280 healing/150 dam for 15 sec. 1.5 minute cooldown. Rep reward from Sha'tar revered. This is also pretty nice for the same reasons, plus there's no competition from damage casters for rep rewards.

  6. Auslese's Light Channeler: 59 healing; on-use: your next spell within ten seconds will cost up to 215 less mana. 3 minute cooldown. 16% drop from Broggok in Blood Furnace. The real gem here is the 59 healing, since the mana reduction is on-use and has a long cooldown.

  7. Heavenly Inspiration: 10mp/5; on-use: 238 healing for 15 secs. 1.5 minute cooldown. Quest reward from Success! in Netherstorm. The very high mp/5 here is unusual on a trinket, and can help people who are having mana issues. Plus, the cooldown isn't shared with Oshu'gun Relic. However, you may have trouble deciding between this and the excellent prot shoulder reward for the same quest.

Weapon:

  1. Lightsworn Hammer: 12 stam, 11 int, 227 healing, 8mp/5. 10% drop from Kargath Bladefist in Shattered Halls. Not only are these first two maces simply excellent healing weapons, they're both pretty easy to get. This drops in normal Shattered Halls, so it shouldn't be too difficult to receive this well-balanced mace.

  2. The Essence Focuser: 227 healing, 11mp/5. BOE blue, average buyout 120g. Or if you're really lazy, you can grab one of these. The lack of stats is made up for by a superior mp/5 rating. The recent swarm of rogues getting BOE blues from Mech chest farming has helped drive prices down on this mace and Crystal Pulse Shield -- I got this free from a guildmate, and the CPS for 25g.

  3. Hammer of the Penitent: 16 int, 13 spi, 227 healing, 6mp/5. 14% drop from Mechano-Lord Capacitus in Mechanar. The spirit is meh and we could use some stam, but this mace is comparable to the above two for pre-raid healing. Slap a major healing enchant on it and no one will see the spirit.

  4. Dathrohan's Ceremonial Hammer: 13 stam, 14 int, 18 spi, 227 healing. 8% drop from Captain Skarloc in heroic Old Hillsbrad. How did the hammer from the end boss of live Strat make it to Old Hillsbrad? There's got to be something screwy going on in the time-stream. Anyway, this mace may look nice on the surface, but trust me -- just pay the cash for the Essence Focuser and avoid heroic COT at all costs.

  5. Will of the Fallen Exarch: 19 stam, 21 resilience, 227 healing. 15% drop from Avatar of the Martyred in heroic Auchenai Crypts. A PVE drop with resilience? That's strange, but hey, if you want to respec holy to get that sweet arena gear, this might just be the best choice due to its resilience and stamina.

  6. Northshire Battlemace: 16 stam, 15 int, 5mp/5, 161 healing. 17% drop from Captain Skarloc in Old Hillsbrad. A lot like Mogor's Anointing Club, but less stam and more int. They're pretty much equal, but this thing has a beautiful, beautiful model, which puts it one ahead of the ogre's club.

  7. Mogor's Anointing Club: 19 stam, 13 int, 5mp/5, 160 healing. Quest reward from Ring of Blood. This is a decent mid-level healing mace, but honestly, who picks up healing gear at 65? You picked the Honed Voidaxe and went ret for a level. That's okay, I did too. We forgive you.

Shield:

  1. Stormshield of Renewal: 12 stam, 16 int, 57 healing. 10% drop from the Black Stalker in heroic Underbog. Far and away the best raw healing shield in the game, although it does require keeping a heroic group together long enough to reach the last boss. Luckily, Underbog is one of the easier heroics. Plus, it looks like a blue Drillborer Disk! Nostalgia alert!

  2. Crystal Pulse Shield: 24 int, 6mp/5, 35 healing. BOE blue, average buyout 39g. This and the Essence Focuser make up the core of the Cheap Holy Pally Healing Set. The int and mp/5 are really helpful to pallies. Mechanar chest runs have dropped these prices pretty low, but they're coming back up, so grab it if you can get it cheaply.

  3. Silvermoon Crest Shield: 20 int, 5mp/5, 23 dam/heal. 13% drop off of Murmur in Shadow Labyrinth. Man, for being from Silvermoon, you'd think there would be more spell crit and healing on this -- or maybe Silvermoon only makes stuff for prot pallies?

  4. Draenei Honor Guard Shield: 16 int, 21 spell crit, 19 dam/heal. BOE blue, average buyout 50g. Like everything else made by the draenei, this is disturbingly pink and organic-looking. The spell crit may look enticing, but after the Illumination nerf, this really isn't better than Crystal Pulse Shield for AH surfers -- and it's more expensive.

  5. Spellbreaker's Buckler: 22 stam, 10 int, 29 dam/heal. Quest reward from Akama's Promise in Shadowmoon Valley. This has the most healing of all the combined dam/heal shields, but its mediocre stats (twice as much stam as int?), lack of spell crit or mp/5, and general pain-in-the-tuchusness to get put it lower than the Silvermoon and Draenei shields.

Libram:

  1. Libram of the Lightbringer: Increases healing done by Holy Light by up to 87. 27% drop from Commander Sarannis in Botanica. Okay, on first glance this appears to be worse than Blessed Book of Nagrand -- but due to spell coefficients, this actually gets you more plus healing. Of course, it really depends on whether you're doing the big heals or just FoL spamming, in which case you'd want ...

  2. Blessed Book of Nagrand: Increases healing done by Flash of Light by up to 79. Quest reward from Nessingwary's chain in Nagrand. You get this as a reward for wiping out half of the animal population of Nagrand -- a quest most people do, since it's easy and gives you a ton of experience and gold. Three of the six possible rewards are heal increases for paladins, shamans, and druids, so this is a no-brainer choice.