Holy-Paladin
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The Light and How to Swing It: Holy versus unholy, how to survive the Lich King
Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine the most difficult encounter to date: defeating the fallen paladin Arthas. Turalyon. Uther. Tirion. Paladins have a rich lineage of heroes in their lore, dating back for centuries decades. These crusaders of the light dedicated their lives to cleansing Azeroth of the darkness that has plagued us for time immemorial. Every new paladin looks up to these paragons of virtue for guidance and inspiration. Our ancestors set the example for how we should conduct ourselves, and show us the courage it takes to fight. However, the story of our paladin heritage has not always been so pure. The greatest threat on Azeroth was also once one of the powerful paladins in existence. Arthas Menethil was a member of the Knights of the Silver Hand, before losing himself in his crusade to stop the scourge plague from spreading. He gave up his humanity in a failed attempt to save the world, and ended up becoming the half of the entity known as the Lich King. Now, in our final effort to rid the world of the scourge blight, we must confront one of our former brothers, and put the Light's strength to the test against the unholy corruption of Frostmourne.
The Light and How to Swing It: Tips to become an all-star healer
Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine what separates the good paladins from the great paladins, and how to get yourself into the second category. Over the course of the past week, I've been in Stratholme, power-leveling a few lowbies in my guild. Paladins are great at rushing through old instances, especially all of those with undead for us to use Holy Wrath on. Consecration and Righteous Fury ensure that we'll always have aggro, and a quick Holy Shock will dispatch just about any opponent. Between the mindless pulls of zombies and gargoyles, I began reminiscing on my times running through Stratholme when it was 'end-game content' and was relatively tough for a PUG to work their way through. I used to two-heal Stratholme when it was a 10 player dungeon, and I remember some of the other healers that we took with us when clearing it. Many of the names and faces have been forgotten, and I couldn't tell you how many different people we had brought along. There are a few healers, however, that I still remember to this day. I realized that I could really only recall the great healers, amazing players who performed their duties with skill and grace. The whole topic made me wonder: what makes the difference between a good healer that is easily discarded, and a great healer that never leaves your memory?
The Light and How to Swing It: Healing Valithria Dreamwalker
Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine how to tackle the Valithria Dreamwalker encounter in Icecrown Citadel. If you've been raiding much in WotLK, you've seen quite the spectrum of 'new' mechanics. While Naxxramas was just a refresh of the old level 60 dungeon, the other raid instances have provided some truly unique fights. The vehicle fight, which started with Malygos and was followed up by Flame Leviathan, gave us the opportunity to step outside our abilities for a few moments, and work with an entirely new (or even nonexistent) healing toolbox. We've also seen fights where healing was the wrong thing to do, with the case-in-point being Anub'arak (specifically on heroic). Healing the wrong target on that fight was literally anti-DPS, as it healed the boss. Icecrown Citadel brings with it several new mechanics, with one specifically that I am sure will be remembered for many expansions to come. That encounter, as you may have guessed, is the escape of Valithria Dreamwalker. Blizzard decided to try some role reversal on this fight, and put healers in charge of 'taking care' of the boss. Instead of killing the boss, however, we must heal her to full, allowing her to escape the dark, cold halls of Icecrown. The DPS are relegated to handling adds, which is their least favorite job, while we get to focus our efforts on a single, stable target, to whom we can do no overhealing. How can it get any better than that?
The Light and How to Swing It: The truth about Lightsworn Garb
Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine the holy paladin Tier 10 set and its bonuses. As my guild and I have been conquering Icecrown Citadel, I find myself with a glut of Emblems of Frost. While my rogue is diligently saving up for some of the sweet rewards, my holy paladin can't even find a use for the new libram. While I did stop for a minute to consider picking up some off spec gear, I also couldn't bring myself to part with these hard-earned Emblems for a non-holy piece. What are we to do with all of the excess? I decided to investigate our Tier 10 4-piece bonus, considering that I was already halfway there with my two current pieces. However, I was also skeptical about how valuable the 4-piece bonus could be, considering that cast time reductions and haste interact in interesting ways. Well, there's that, and the fact that our tier set was itemized by someone who clearly enjoyed watching us squirm. With a complete lack of a haste/MP5 piece and two crit/MP5 pieces, our 4-piece bonus had better be really amazing to convince me to drop my off set pieces. Read on to find out what I decided.
The Light and How to Swing It: Keeping the tank alive
Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine how to handle situations where the tank is getting destroyed, and we're tasked with keeping them alive. Tank death. It's one of the worst ways for a raid encounter to end: abrupt and usually absolute. In a dungeon, you've typically only got one guy who can take a few blows, and so the enemy will start cleaving your soft DPS. Blizzard balances each raid encounter around the idea of having two tanks, so the other tank is often busy with their own duties, and can't survive the double duty. With this era of multiple enrage timers and tight DPS requirements, there's really no room for bringing a spare tank for the 'just in case' situation. Holy paladins are uniquely designed to be the masters of tank healing. We've got multiple cooldowns we can use to reduce their incoming damage, and the most potent HPS toolkit available. A tank has to actually try to die when we've got the Holy Light firehose aimed at them. However, even with all these abilities at our disposal, a tank can still eat dirt halfway through an encounter if we're not playing our best. Read on for a discussion on how to keep your tank up during high damage situations.
The Light and How to Swing It: It's all intellect's fault
Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine the difference between throughput and longevity, and how intellect skews the scale. Paladins have an incredible amount of what I call 'support' spells: things that aren't part of your rotation but provide us with quite a bit of flexibility. All of our 'Hand of X' spells would fall into this category, along with several other unique abilities that set us apart from other healers. Our healing toolbox has also expanded significantly, with Sacred Shield and Beacon of Light completely redefining how a holy paladin heals in WotLK. My actions bars are filled with macros and various support spells that I may need on a moment's notice. Even with the sheer number of abilities that paladins have to deal with different situations, we are left with only two true healing spells to rely on. Holy Light and Flash of Light are our workhorses, with nearly all of our actual healing coming from one or the other. Holy Light provides us with an essentially infinite source of throughput (see the above graph from Valithria Dreamwalker), while Flash of Light's efficiency gives us a longevity that has other healers green with envy. Trying to reconcile the difference between these two paradigms, massive throughput vs persistent longevity, is one of the most intensely discussed topics in the holy paladin community. Read on for my thoughts on the topic.
The Light and How to Swing It: Holy 101
Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine the basics of a holy paladin, from gems and enchants to talents and spell usage. I have always been of the belief that the paladin is a healer at heart, with their hybrid nature simply an extension of their healing capability. In vanilla WoW, paladins were the Alliance's healing all-star, with our tier sets and raid utility focusing on the restorative arts. Retribution and protection both have abilities that heal in some way, and their talent trees even have pro-healing options. If you want to experience the purest distilled essence of the paladin class, you have to try holy. This is intended to be a guide to the holy paladin's basic principles and tenets, not an in-depth guide into high-end raid healing or specialized gearing choices. If you're new to the holy paladin or want to discover what the spec is all about, read on.
Patch 3.3 PTR: Ghostcrawler explains Paladin changes
You know how it goes. Blizzard nerfs Paladins, Paladins shake their heads in disbelief, then break out the pitchforks and scream bloody murder for a bit, beg Blizzard not to push through with the changes, and eventually run home and cry into My Little Pony sheets and staining pink underwear. Sure enough, when the recent PTR patch notes hinted at nerfs to the Paladin class, the pitchfork-wielding and bloody murder-screaming ensued. We're now about to enter the stage of bargaining. It's still on the PTR, after all. For those wondering what the bed-wetting ruckus is all about, Sacred Shield was nerfed to proc only once every 30 seconds (essentially proccing only once every cast of the spell unless augmented with talents), Aura Mastery was nerfed to 6 seconds down from 10, and Lay on Hands is being primed to be uncastable on one's self. Ghostcrawler said that he didn't "want to promise (they) won't change the spell for 3.3," but that players also shouldn't "worry too much on the Lay on Hands change at this point" since it didn't make it to the latest PTR build. He explains in the forums that Paladins are no longer just a support class (as they were for quite a long time), but that all the abilities over time have contributed to making the class feel like a "one-man army" that is able to play offensively, defensively, and essentially take on more challenges without having to change stances, forms, or even specs. In a rather snippy response to a troll crying (with My Little Pony blanket in hand) in the forums, Ghostcrawler simply said, "Dear OP, Bye. Hugs, GC."
Raid Rx: What's a good raid healing makeup?
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. What's the ideal raid healing team for 25-man raid groups? As your guild starts acquiring better and better gear, you'll soon come to the conclusion that you can scale down the amount of healers that are needed in a raid. On several boss fights, your raid can get away with as low as 5 healers. In fact, 5 healing a raid is the norm now. During Burning Crusade, a majority of raids set up healing teams of 6-7. In Wrath of the Lich King, there's been more of a shift towards increasing the DPS. Nowadays, healers are far more equipped to handle the different forms of incoming raid damage.
Class Q&A: Paladin
Once again, it's time for a Class Q&A with Ghostcrawler! Today Paladins get their chance to shine (previously: Shaman, Mage, Death Knight, Warlock). As with the other Q&As, this one starts with a bit on what the idea is behind paladins, with a glance at their history and at their present. In the beginning: paladins were a "defensive buffing class...buffs were pretty much the entire reason you'd want to group with a paladin." End-game classic WoW: paladins were healers only. BC: paladins could tank, but were still mostly OTs. Wrath: "finally embraced all three specs." Paladins still have several unique facets: bubbles, strong dispels, plate armor as a healer, and the Seal and Judgment system. Itemization: so far in Wrath, MP5 wasn't particularly valuable, and they claim it wasn't inteded to be. They still think MP5 is undervalued right now, though, hence the buffs coming to it in patch 3.2. They also think Int/Crit based mana regen is a bit out of control, and furthermore than in patch 3.2, some Holy pallies might look into taking Haste.
More MP5 on gear incoming
Mana regeneration has been a hot issue for raiding healers during this expansion. Basically, we had far too much of it in tier 7 content, to the point where we could ignore our mana bars in many situations. I once joked that I could replace our holy paladin's mana bar with a blue piece of paper without any loss of information; it wasn't very far from the truth. When tier 8 came around they tried to nerf our mana regeneration so that we'd finally care about overhealing and gear for mana regen as well as throughput, but it seems they didn't go far enough, at least for one class. Many Holy Paladins are still ignoring MP5 gear; in fact, the aforementioned holy pally refused to pick up most Ulduar spell plate because it all has MP5 on it and he likes his Naxx-25 stuff better. He's not alone in this tactic; many paladins are taking the same route, and mourning that this gear is no good for us. Ghostcrawler recognizes this problem, stating that "Regardless of any other changes we might make, mp5 just doesn't seem to provide enough point for point on gear." So what are they going to do about it? He says "It's possible (likely?) we'll just increase all of the mp5 on gear." I'm honestly not sure this will solve the problem, since I suspect lots of people still won't want MP5, but it's a step in the right direction; MP5 has historically been a very expensive stat, which means the other stats on a piece of gear have to be lower just to get a little bit of mana regen out of it. And he does mention "other changes we might make," so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Val'anyr is a Paladin weapon
Paladin blogger Ferarro thinks that the new legendary mace from Ulduar is a Paladin weapon and she explains why in a detailed post over at her nook. While Val'anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings is a mace that all healing classes can use, the "discovery" of the weapon's proc -- something that's been speculated on for a while -- puts the weapon squarely in the hands of a Paladin. Even Allison found it something of a bummer (she plays a Druid) when she found out about the proc, and even talked about how to assign it when your guild gets those fragments to drop.Ferarro compares Val'anyr to other best-in-slot competitors, from the Turning Tide from Kel'thuzad to the new Ulduar weapons. Given that the proc seems to favor humongous heals, it seems tailor made for Holy Paladins, masters of nuke healing. The effect also seems to proc pretty often according to Ferraro, who reveals, "for what it's worth, when I saw it in action a while ago it was proccing 100% of the time". Not only that, but she points out that the lack of Spirit makes it sub-par for Priests; the lack of MP5 makes it less than attractive for Shamans; and notes that Druids aren't exactly in the market for Crit Rating, which Val'anyr has. It's a rather interesting read, and something I'll probably send to our GM for some, um, consideration...
How to decide who's getting Val'anyr
With Ulduar due to hit in the near future, Tales of a Priest addressed a pretty timely subject for 25-man raiders yesterday with a blog post on Val'anyr and how you're going to assign it. As it's a constructed Legendary like Atiesh rather than being a dropped item like the Warglaives and Thori'dal (sudden thought: why do the caster Legendaries have to be assembled, whereas the melee/ranged Legendaries just drop?), you're going to have to put some time and thought into which one of your healers is going to get this baby first. It's not exactly the world's most comfortable question for a guild leader, but I like how Derevka lays the issue out so matter-of-factly, and then goes on to address an interesting point concerning Val'anyr's proc. Your ideal candidate is a good healer with great attendance who plans on hanging around for a while, but then there's the question -- which class gets the most use out of the proc?
The Colosseum: Helpless in the Twisting Nether
The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters in the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Netherdrakes.Season 5 is winding down to a close, even if we don't know the official start date for Season 6. Patch 3.1 is somewhere around the corner, with Ulduar and class changes both lurking in the shadows like devilish rogues. If there's one thing we can expect to be different between seasons, however, it's that Holy Paladins are going to perform radically different from how they do now.In recognition of the Season of the Holy Pally (for better or for worse), we have one last interview with a wielder of light, a barista of bubble, a Shonuff of Shock! Helpless, from Twisting Nether, is rated highly in all three team formats. Check out what Helpless had to say about her tactics behind the cut.
The Colosseum: The man known as Varl
The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters in the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Netherdrakes.In the world of the Arena, one Paladin's name stands alone. It is a name of pride and success. It is a name that veritably screams, "I am a gladiator." It is a name that is very, very hard to spell. That's why Varluneyna's friends simply call him "Varl."If you're not familiar with him, Varl is a Holy Paladin. His 2v2 team is the top rated team on the Reckoning battlegroup, while his 3v3 team ain't doing shabby either. He's also the top rated Paladin in the world right now, but his live server ratings. Varl took the time to talk to us (which was awesome) about both his 2v2 and his 3v3 experienes (which is totally awesome.)Check out what Varl had to say behind the cut.
The Colosseum: Meetsi of Auchindoun
The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters in the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Netherdrakes Holy Paladins are a bit of a hot topic right now. While moment-captured statistics will certainly indicate they have a measure of power in Season 5, this isn't the first time that's happened. Back in Season 1, Holy Paladins were the class-to-have. But as soon as Resilience and mobility became popular in Arena compositions, Holy Paladins became a thing of the past. Even the so-called "lolret" seemed to fare better in the Arena that the plate-wearing healers. With all the uproar about Holy Paladins right now, it's fair to take a second look at the class and tactics in the weekend Arena column. Meetsi of Auchindoun was kind enough to share his thought on the Arena with us, especially from the perspective of an Arena healer. You might also recognize him as partner to Infractus, from last week.
Glyph of Holy Light nerfed
Yesterday, the healing forums were flooded with complaints largely by Priests alleging that the new 3.0.8 version of the Paladin Glyph of Holy Light was completely overpowered and made Paladins into group healers, shoe-horning them into a niche recently left half-vacant by our Circle of Healing nerf. Such complainants will presumably be happy to hear that the glyph is being hotfixed, reducing the range from 20 yards to 8. Ghostcrawler calls the glyph "vastly overpowered," and goes on in a later post to give a bit more information. Like most changes, this was not done in response to QQ; as it turns out, the glyph was just overpowered. He also states that [major] glyphs are meant to be "about on par with passive talents" in terms of their power, which is in line with what I've been observing (maybe a few percent increase in damage/healing/mitigation per glyph, for the good ones). At any rate, sorry to my Holy Paladin friends; I guess this one was just too good to last. I'm still jealous of your everlasting mana.
Divine Plea changed once more
Last night's beta patch introduced a quite absurd change to Divine Plea (which you can see in the tooltip there), rendering it more or less worthless for Holy Paladins, useful only to Retribution and Protection. In one of the faster turnarounds in the beta, Ghostcrawler has already posted a new version of the spell.In response to player feedback (mana issues, boredom) Divine Plea will now only reduce your healing by 20% (instead of this patch's 100%), but the tradeoff is that it will be able to be dispelled. As someone who primarily plays PvE, this seems like a much, much better version of the spell. I mean, come on. Last night's version of the spell was, "You take a nap for 15 seconds while some of your mana comes back." That's not exactly how you make an engaging and entertaining class. People who PvP heavily may disagree with me, but I'm not sure. I have a feeling naptime is as unwelcome in PvP as it is in PvE.Paladins also seem to be concerned about mobility while healing. There are some potential changes that could come, but Ghostcrawler and the developers seem to want to see the current state of things in action a little more before they make any updates there.
Insider Trader: Armorsmiths vs. weaponsmiths
I received a question over the tip line from an armorsmith this morning who is considering switching to weaponsmith because he is dissatisfied with his profession. Player regrets surrounding a chosen specialization, or even profession, are common and happen to almost everyone at one time or another.JDT writes that he is "extremely disappointed" with armorsmithing and what he is able to make, and that one of his reasons for possibly switching to weaponsmithing is that he theorizes it would be helpful to be able to pass down weapons to his alts that cannot wear plate. Unfortunately JDT, anything that you craft as either a weaponsmith or an armorsmith is not only bind on pick-up, but it also requires you to have that specialization in order to wield/wear it. That being said, there are blacksmithing plans for weapons and armor floating around that are bind on equip and can be passed along, but those can be made by any blacksmith regardless of specialization. This week I will begin comparing the various armorsmith and weaponsmith pieces to the first non-crafted upgrades in order to illustrate the value of each item and help each class and spec come to an informed decision when it comes time to choose blacksmithing specialties. Next week I'll finish out the comparison, as there is more than I can fit into this week's edition!
PvE winners and losers in patch 3.0
I'm putting together a class-by-class prediction post on how the changes we'll see in patch 3.0 and beyond will wind up affecting PvE gameplay in Wrath, but it's probably a bit premature to make specific guesses while talents and skills are still being overhauled in the beta. Still, I think a few general trends (at least for 3.0) are pretty clear.I'm calling it now; Paladins will fare best, but Shamans will be the hardest hit by the upcoming changes, especially with respect to raiding. I think this change is driven in no small part by Blizzard's realization that Sunwell-level raid guilds are hugely dependent on the party-specific buffs like totems and Heroism/Bloodlust that Shamans bring. The problem is that Shamans are still the least-played class, which has left raiding guilds desperate for a high-end population of Shamans that simply does not exist (especially Alliance-side). Making Shaman totems and Heroism/Bloodlust buff the entire raid (but heavily nerfing how often the raid can benefit from the latter) means the days of stacking Shamans (or trying to) are effectively over.Paladin changes, especially for holy and retribution, are equally driven by Blizzard's experience with Sunwell. With absolutely breathtaking amounts of raid damage occurring, encounters were disproportionately weighted in favor of: a). healers with more raid-healing capacity, like resto Shamans and CoH Priests (something we heard from SK Gaming months ago) and b). DPS who brought raid-wide DPS buffs to kill the boss as fast as possible (e.g. Retribution Paladins on Brutallus and M'uru). Given the new skills I'm seeing on other healing specs, I'll make another prediction; prepare to see that same level of raid damage rear its ugly head in Naxxramas again.I'll be launching a more extensive prediction post once talents and skills are finalized for Wrath, and then I'd like to do a follow-up post at some point after guilds start conquering level 80 raid content to see whether they were any good.
