Holy Paladin Stress

[technospice 0]

I've rocked Holy for many years. Since 5.0.2 I have hated it. I waited until WoD released and still hate it. I somehow have doubts my feelings will change 100+.

I don't have a rotation anymore. It doesn't feel tactical at all. I'm pretty much just spamming FoL, throwing in Holy Shock + Holy Light when damage is slow enough I can spare the CDs, unless raid damage is incoming and then it's spam HR/LoD. Healing is a high-stress frenzy for mediocre results. I've tried to focus Haste but feel like my throughput has just flat-lined by doing so. I frequently have trouble keeping my raid up because fights are so high mobility and I have practically nothing I can cast on the go. When I have to move people die. I have tried other things but nothing else can keep up with the amount of damage players are taking except spamming heals as fast as I can and hope they know how to pop their defensive cooldowns when I have to move.

it's just not fun at all. Does anyone else feel this way? I'm literally having a hard time getting up the interest to log in anymore. I've always been a healer, it's always been fun, until now. I've never been so low on the healing charts. If Blizzard's goal was to make healing more tactical, I feel like they grossly failed, or don't understand the word.

[Fyrpixie 4]

I can't help the rotation issue, because you pretty much hit the nail on the head there.  However, after I got to 100, and I got some gear out of the normal dungeons, rares, and pretty much anything else I could get my hands on, healing has gotten much better.  One upgrade makes a HUGE difference for us, as paladins.  I was quite worried about the healing issue until I saw how much the upgraded gear helped.  Popping all your CD's at critical moments is a must.  At first, you will feel like you don't have time to think about what heal you need to throw, and it will be a spam fest for a few dungeons, but after getting some upgrades it gets a lot more manageable.  

 

I still have hope for us, we just might take a bit more gearing than other healers to keep up with them.  I am ok with that though.

[Peacehealz 0]

does beacon of insight bounce off my multistrike heals?

[technospice 0]

The concern is this: I was decently geared before WoD while raiding SoO and I felt the exact same way. I really don't foresee the mechanics being so different that it'll be different at the end game. 

And really, why does Blizzard feel the need to make shit awful except at the end game gear grind? Very frustrating. I may forsake my dozens of friends playing for the far more lonely TERA just because the combat is so far superior in that game, especially for healers.

Word on the skreet in my circle is all their Healadin friends are evacing for other classes right now. =T I don't know how accurate that is, or if it's just anecdotal. I've played a paladin since Vanilla, when paladins couldn't play any role very well, but at least it was FUN.

Edited November 22, 2014 by technospice

[Jelo 0]

My main has been a holy pally since TBH.  I've loved healing with him.  I was nicely geared and felt powerful at the end of SoO, but now I feel so weak.  I'm feeling the same as the first poster, spamming FoL, with just Holy Shock thrown in, and always feeling behind.

I went to the proving grounds yesterday and did healer Bronze with little trouble, but I'm having the worst time with healer Silver.  Just to test, I did the damage proving grounds quests, and as Ret, I passed both bronze and silver with ease.  I would have tried Gold, but had to leave.  I hope it gets better, but I'm afraid.

 

Jelo

The concern is this: I was decently geared before WoD while raiding SoO and I felt the exact same way. I really don't foresee the mechanics being so different that it'll be different at the end game. 

And really, why does Blizzard feel the need to make shit awful except at the end game gear grind? Very frustrating. I may forsake my dozens of friends playing for the far more lonely TERA just because the combat is so far superior in that game, especially for healers.

Word on the skreet in my circle is all their Healadin friends are evacing for other classes right now. =T I don't know how accurate that is, or if it's just anecdotal. I've played a paladin since Vanilla, when paladins couldn't play any role very well, but at least it was FUN.

[Bannik254 0]

Healing does get better with gear, itemizing Haste/Critical with some Spirit in between, but the key to Holy Paladin healing I've noticed seems to be your use of the tier 6, level 100, talent and the Avenging Wrath cool down.

 

Holy Prism for me is the best healing ability in our arsenal for 5 mans heroics. If your having a hard time, tell your group's DPS to stay within 30 yards of the boss at all times via range finder addons, if needed. 

 

Avenging Wrath, as it comes, is far too potent and just ends in overhealing, along with its 3 minute cool down, the ability generally gets saved for "OHS*IT" situations, which isn't optimal. Get and use the Glyph that reduces the spell affects by 50% and the cool down by 50%. At 1.5 minute CD you can begin using this talent once every 2 pulls, once every pull if the tank is slow.

 

Saved By the Light, this level 100 talent is getting overlooked in favor of the second beacon of light. The second beacon is honestly overrated in 5 man content. It just results in more obnoxious overhealing. Saved by the Light is the ultimate "OHS*IT" "button" in our arsenal. It has saved my tank more times than I can count. Get it. See for yourself. Having a Cheat Death on a 1MIN CD is such good utility and it boggles my mind how any healer worth their salt would not have this outside of raids. Even in raids, this talent will have its place. Thinking that Patchwork type boss coming in that upcoming raid. 

 

Another talent, Clemency, getting two charges of Hand of Sacrifice, again, is such powerful active mitigation that without it, you are gimping yourself. Having Lay on Hands on a 5min-6min CD is nice, but again, in comparison to two Hand of Sacrifices at 3min CD each with 30% Dmg reduction. This talent clearly wins. And it synergies very well with Avenging Wrath, use Hand of Sacrifice while Avenging Wrath is on CD as a filler Dmg mitigation. Glyph it as well. Obviously.

 

Those are all my current tips for reducing "Healer" stress. Another day, another dungeon. Have fun guys! 

[Gho5tRUN3R 0]

Great seeing all the love for Holy Paladins. While there are some great solutions for dungeons, I wonder how you would make those work for Raids. I am terrified of how my stress in a dungeon will double in size with the Raid. The lack of ability to efficiently heal multiple targets or stack effectively with other heals worries me. Druids and Shamans have it so much easier with their AOEs that they can just drop. But Paladins have to have our light bounce off enemies or ourselves in order to heal people. And those people have to be standing within 10 meters of us usually. It's a nightmare and I can only imagine the panic of it in the heat of a battle like Thok the Bloodthirsty. The immobility during the cast times, building of Holy, the single heal preference, and the moment a boss like Thok starts using screech or just moves, you're in trouble. I loved healing and I loved my Paladin, but I'm not sure how effective I'll be in situations like that. Any tips for that? 

[Keromaku 0]

I raided heroic (pre patch 6.0) and mythic SoO and I am currently doing CM's as a hpally with my guild. Honestly you need a good group to not take damage because we get so behind on healing.

 

But doing CMs I use the double beacon, because saved by the light is great but i would much rather passively heal another person while healing the tank and vice versa if you use the glyph of beacon you can switch its target without having to really interrupt your healing, i love that sort of control and fluidity.

 

holy avenger is great on most fights where you can get EFs rolling on all your group and spamming LoD though it sometimes is lack luster when the group has to be spread out.

 

Holy Prism is by far the best out of the 90 level tree, with double beacon, I can have the entire group around 50 and using it on a add both beacon targets get to full and the rest of the group pretty close.

 

Also I use the glyph of FoL since the tank usually needs it to stay alive when he or myself doesn't have CDs.

 

I really want clemency tho I do love my unbreakable spirit there just isn't enough magic damage to make the reduced CDs worth it.

 

In runs I try to drink the moment combat ends, so the group can maintain a decent pace but I don't go oom. Also I kinda dislike the whole rotation idea. THAT isn't tactical at all if you just spam the same spells over and over in the same order. I get that we don't have much in the way of healing spells which sucks but I am kinda glad to be out of the whole HS HR HR EF rotation at the end of SoO. Honestly what facilitates my great healing is a good UI with keybinds for almost everything, So I don't have to stop to click a CD or anything. Also great tanks are super important, our DK tank who i do CMs with will kite if he has to to stay alive and rotates his CDs and dodges every ability he can. HE makes it pretty easy to heal tho even still once we both run out of CDs sometimes he gets destroyed by damage. I think it will be way easier in raids, you have all the heals from each class that goes on the tanks and you can plan better and have groups for healing and not have to spam FoL (hopefully) raids always seem to make healing alot better and more streamlined.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Keromaku

[Pwnzy 0]

Dear friend, 

 

I think your rotation is the biggest problem here. Spamming flash of lights and holy light is the worst thing you can do as a holy paladin imo. Also those are two least effective spells. In mop you still could use your aoe heals a lot and do high healing numbers, but in WoD the aoe heals are nerfed, making them pretty much useless. Holy spec is kinda hard now in WoD, I have to admit. You have to cast basically everything, which is the reason you should think about your heals etc. 

 

I would start by including crusader strike in your rotation. Crusader strike is very important for generation holy power. You will have to stand in melee range pretty much all of the time, but I think it adds something special to the gameplay of holy. Now when you have built up enough of holy power, your next most important spell is eternal flame. 

 

The rotation: 

 

it's basically like this: you make as much holy power as you can by using holy shock and CS > you try to cover as many people with eternal flame as possible > you move your lvl 100 beacon around while keeping the usual one on the tank. It's important that you use Devine Purpose as a talent, that way you can apply eternal flame to more people. This is basically the most effective and most efficient rotation manawise.

 

Oh and ofcourse, not to forget, for lvl 90 talent: Light's hammer. Nice aoe CD , does pretty good healing .

 

It's up to you how to use the infusion of light procs. Usually I use them for holy light when the tank is taking heavy demage, or for holy radiance when the raid requires aoe heals.

 

I haven't played holy since 5.2 so I kinda had to get used to it when I got lvl 100 and started doing heroics. It kinda is difficult at the first sight I agree, but once you understand how it works you will be doing pretty nice heals. I think that holy is kinda lacking burst atm but yea... the spec revolves around the use of eternal flam and those beacons of light. This is where blizz wants to go with healing for ALL specs. They want healers acctually think about their heals and make more tactical decisions, that's why aoe heals are nerfed now... pretty much for all specs.

Edited November 28, 2014 by Pwnzy

[DBHAShadow 0]

I myself went from top charts and no problems healing to feeling severely gimped and incompetent. I've been using the icey-veins stat priorities and the such, got my crafted neck, crafted ring, and my stage two ring, along with mostly full heroic gear. My heals just don't have any oomph to them, only time my heals feel large and nice is with wings on. I geared via queueing as ret, I managed to get my silver healer trial done but the only thing that felt like it was getting any healing out was flash of light spam.

[Roiddzz 0]

It's really nuts healing in Raids.  Having a Disc Priest with me has been helping.

 

I've been leaving a beacon up on each tank and putting Hand of Sac on them when heavy damage comes.  I've been using Holy Shock and Holy Light on raid members, and Flash of Light on tanks if they need extra as I get the 40% decreased mana cost.

I've switched to the AoE hammer from the single target one, but only use it as needed (not on CD) because of the high mana cost.

 

I avoid using my healing CDs unless necessary because of the ridiculous amount of mana i use up with them active.  This is probably wrong but it's the only way I've been managing to not go OOM so fast.  Holy Avenger is awesome for getting Eternal Flames up on everyone.  I almost never use AoE heals because of the mana cost and I just trust that the other raid healers are covering that.

 

I feel like the whole gameplay of Holy Paladin right now is just mana management.  I hate that feeling that I have to hold back but honestly that's what the class feels like to me right now.

 

I would love any advice or comments.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Roiddzz

[Ariashley 0]

The only fights where I feel gimped at all are on heavy movement fights, but even those aren't tragic.  I've been preferring Holy Prism to Light's Hammer, mostly because it's a lot easier to use while running, since running, hitting a button, targeting the ground, all at the same time is hard to do and inevitably, the raid moves right then.  I've also sometimes ended up with hammers on rafters in weird rooms - whereas with a mouseover targettarget macro - I can cast Holy Prism on a melee or a tank and get the 5 people around whatever mob they're hitting (so I target the mouseover and then cast holy prism on their unfriendly target).

 

I get annoyed in some of the challenge modes - first boss in Grimrail, first boss in Skyreach - where there's constant movement and heavy heavy damage.  In the top 50 Grimrail runs, there are 2 holy paladins on the wowprogress board and a ton druids, priests and shaman.  I've been thinking about using Selfless healer in heavy movement fights, but not sure it would end in better results than Eternal flame hots. 

 

Also, Holy Light does more HPS than Flash if cast during infusion of light because of the faster cast time and is significantly more mana efficient.  I like to stack Holy Avenger with a few Holy Radiance and Light of Dawn for burst healing in something like Tectus or Grimrail 1st boss if mana can support it.  So far, it's been able to do so.   Yesterday, I was not using my Holy Power effectively because I changed how it appears on my UI and wasn't noticing it and was paying more attention to other things.  I probably would have done a lot more healing if I was using it more effectively.  Still, I am similarly geared and similarly skilled as the rest of the raid healers in our group and we all traded out top of the pack for various fights; but no one was "clearly worse".  I was never at the bottom, so I guess I've gotten used to it.  It's rougher in 5-mans when it's so clear how hard it is to catch up when the tank gets hit really hard.

 

Personally, I like keeping my beacons on the main tanks because almost all of the raid fights have heavy damage on both tanks and it lets me tank heal very effectively.  In dungeons, I do the tank and a melee (or myself if there aren't any melee - since I ignore myself the most).

 

I think in every fight I use pretty much every spell and ability (except maybe Hand of Freedom and sometimes not HoP) available at least once.  The style of healing, in general, has just changed.  No one has any really big spells.

 

[Kanck 0]

Dear friend,

I think your rotation is the biggest problem here. Spamming flash of lights and holy light is the worst thing you can do as a holy paladin imo. Also those are two least effective spells. In mop you still could use your aoe heals a lot and do high healing numbers, but in WoD the aoe heals are nerfed, making them pretty much useless. Holy spec is kinda hard now in WoD, I have to admit. You have to cast basically everything, which is the reason you should think about your heals etc.

I would start by including crusader strike in your rotation. Crusader strike is very important for generation holy power. You will have to stand in melee range pretty much all of the time, but I think it adds something special to the gameplay of holy. Now when you have built up enough of holy power, your next most important spell is eternal flame.

The rotation:

it's basically like this: you make as much holy power as you can by using holy shock and CS > you try to cover as many people with eternal flame as possible > you move your lvl 100 beacon around while keeping the usual one on the tank. It's important that you use Devine Purpose as a talent, that way you can apply eternal flame to more people. This is basically the most effective and most efficient rotation manawise.

Oh and ofcourse, not to forget, for lvl 90 talent: Light's hammer. Nice aoe CD , does pretty good healing .

It's up to you how to use the infusion of light procs. Usually I use them for holy light when the tank is taking heavy demage, or for holy radiance when the raid requires aoe heals.

I haven't played holy since 5.2 so I kinda had to get used to it when I got lvl 100 and started doing heroics. It kinda is difficult at the first sight I agree, but once you understand how it works you will be doing pretty nice heals. I think that holy is kinda lacking burst atm but yea... the spec revolves around the use of eternal flam and those beacons of light. This is where blizz wants to go with healing for ALL specs. They want healers acctually think about their heals and make more tactical decisions, that's why aoe heals are nerfed now... pretty much for all specs.

Dear friend

You are completely and absolutely wrong on just about everything you wrote in this post. Crusader strike is never worth using due to how ineffective our holy power finishers are as holy. Holy light and flash of light are our best spells, and the only reason to use holy shock and finishers is due to mana concerns (and to make beacon of insight jump if you are using it for 5 mans). Again, our holy power finishers are quite weak, making Divine Purpose the worst talent of its tier. Due to how slow our HP generation is without ooming ourselves with holy radiance usage, holy avenger becomes a bit weak as well. The best talent (before tier set bonuses) is sanctified wrath coupled with the merciful wrath glyph which, changes AW to become a 50% healing increase for 20 seconds every 1.5 minutes. This synergizes extremely well with our already efficient and powerful heals in flash of light and holy light.

Both sacred shield and eternal flame are very close in healing output so far, but good usage of sacred shield requires you to monitor buffs and debuffs very closely and understand when and where to use it. SS is also more costly on mana, which can be problematic early on when spirit is rare. Holy prism is insanely good so far, both in 5 mans and raids and should be your default choice except for fights where the raid can stay stationary for light's hammer's duration, and is taking constant raid wide damage. The level 100 talents are all quite good, but I'd recommend double beacons for raids, especially fights like brackenspore where both tanks take damage at the same time. For challenge modes I'd personally recommend beacon of insight, as the tank is usually the only one taking damage. The beacon has a preference towards the caster, so if you eternal flame yourself, it'll constantly jump to the tank while you're at 100% hp. I wouldnt recommend using holy radiance or light of dawn (not even glyphed) too much in 5 mans, as the hps is awful without AW. You should also be careful using these spells in raids due to the extremely high mana cost.

I'd also like to add that holy dos absolutely not lack burst. The reason we use the merciful wrath glyph is because we have too much burst. During unglyphed avenging wrath, we possibly have the highest healing burst of all classes, except for mistweavers revive.

Edited December 12, 2014 by Kanck

[Vear 3]

Dear friend

You are completely and absolutely wrong on just about everything you wrote in this post. 

 

Hello friends! You're actually both wrong. Holy Light and Flash of Light are neither our best spells nor are they our worst; You're looking at it the wrong way. They're just two spells of many that you'll need to utilize effectively in order to be a good healer. Holy Light should, however, be one of your more frequently cast heals, as it is very mana-efficient, particularly with double beacon. As for Crusader Strike, arguments can be made for and against its use on a case-by-case basis. In raids it won't always be viable for you to be on the boss's ass, and you won't always be able to spare the globals, let alone the mana. 

 

Sanctified Wrath along with the Merciful Wrath glyph can definitely be an effective combination for certain encounters. However, in a typical raid environment, I find regular, unmodified Avenging Wrath to be superior, for a couple of reasons. The changes to the ability that came in WoD are completely insane. Double healing, in addition to 20% additional haste and crit. Because of this huge buff, Holy Paladins with AW up are able to burst for healing similar to that of another cooldown, such as Tranq or Healing Tide.

 

In a typical raid, these are the healing cooldowns that you would be saving for use at very specific points of the fight, in order to deal with large amounts of raid damage, usually. These abilities often operate on three minute cooldowns, as does Avenging Wrath. Now that AW allows us to burst for similar levels of raid healing, you will often be better served stepping into this cooldown rotation and using your 3 min AW to heal through a difficult mechanic. Obviously this depends on the encounter you are working on, as well as the composition of your raid. My point is that AW grants us enough throughput to function as a bonafide raid cooldown. 

 

What about Holy Avenger vs Sanctified Wrath? On its own, Holy Avenger is a strong cooldown. If you're using your AW as a raid cooldown, taking HA will give you an extra cooldown to burn in a rough situation. The best part of Sanctified Wrath is the extended duration of AW. The Holy Shock buffs are nice too, but ten extra seconds of more than double your standard throughput is nothing to scoff at. Combining it with the glyph may squeeze some additional value out of it. 

 

I almost always take HA over SW because HA is so much more flexible. It's a useful and hugely mana-efficient cooldown on its own, but if you feel that you really need some extreme throughput, you can stack it with AW for fairly massive EFs and LoDs. Stacking Holy Avenger with your wings is likely to bring more burst healing than SW ever could.