Hi everyone. I am pretty familiar with ret/prot… at least, enough to get the gist of it ![:slight_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
but how does holy pally play in terms of casual PVE? Lower level mythics, BGs, some raiding.
I’m used to MW and holy priest for reference.
Would you say its enjoyable?
I main holy pally currently, but I came from a resto druid (so, from super proactive playstyle to mostly reactive). I just do Mythic+ and BGs
While I miss all my hots, holy pallies have soooo many buttons to deal with different situations.
Want to ignore a mechanic that would kill you? Bubble
Want to save that guy from getting eaten at the dino boss in atal dazar? BoP
Need an emergency tank heal? LoH
Want to be a god for 25 seconds every 2 minutes? Wings
(There are a few others too)
I feel a lot “safer” on my paladin cause I can skip some mechanics completely in dungeons if need be.
My complaints would be:
Overall, I would say I’m enjoying it – worth trying out!
For BG, 2s & Raiding ( Glimmar Built ) holy paladin is Super Good. for M+ Holy Paladin is a bit awkward. During Brusting affix Paladin suffers most due to its worst AOE Heals. Also in dungeon where people have to stand far apart paladin suffers most specially 2nd boss of Underrot, last boss of Siege of Boralus, 3rd boss Atal, all are very hard fight for Holy Paladin. And they are very gear dependent, if you don’t have enough crit , you won’t enjoy it much.
Having just recently geared my Hpal, I gotta say they dont feel like the strongest healers by a longshot. Mythics and raids were significantly easier on my mw/resto and I felt that if you got behind as a Hpal it was really hard without a significant cooldown to catch up.
Wings is great - you can pretty much keep up anyone during this time - but for my current ilvl (390) I am far less effective as a healer than my rdruid (similar ilvl) and the playstyle is much harder.
Youre viable. But these guys are right. When it comes to true aoe situations, we hurt. Especially if you raid with a resto druid/shammy, good hpriest, monks. All these Excel at AOE healing. It makes your numbers drop when you run with the .
The bursting afix and raid wide dmg(tantrum or paku) it shows that we don’t have aoe healing as well. Glimmer can make up for it. Working into Justicar and avenging crusader can make you a little better for aoe. Really we just need holy radiance back
Beacon of virtue has become my new favorite spell in the game. While its nearly useless in raids… when you use it in 5 mans it is rediculously fun. Bursting is a hard affix for healers sure… but when you can pop beacon of virtue and heal the whole group to full in just 3 or 4 globals it doesnt feel terrible.
I think paladin suffers bad from having all burst healing. Not having smaller heals more frequently makes balancing mana consumption and overhealing difficult. I hate wastinf GCDs on overhealing so I spend what most pugs consider too much time dpsing. When a pull ends up going bad and you werent spamming overhealing and end up lower on the meters it is dangerous for your spot. Who wants to overheal all the time when you can add some extra damage onto the boss.
I’d like to see them buff lights hammer to make it a raid cool down really worth using again. Maybe increase the size of it some. And make it baseline so that we at least have 1 aoe raid cooldown that heals. Aura mastery has been nerfed too much at this point(though with devo aura you reduce a good amount of dmg)
And bring back holy radiance. 10 yards around whoever you cast it on it heals everyone. If you cast it on yourself or your beaconed target it heals for more
Thanks everyone. I’ve definitely read about how Bursting can suck, in general but especially as a pally. However, I have heard that BoV can be a lifesaver and fun to use. I’m getting the sense it’s all doable but perhaps with a bit more effort required than other healers.
Luckily the time I spend in 5 man settings is higher than raids - and perhaps I’d do Ret during raids anyway.
I just wouldn’t want to get to 120 and find that the content I do the most – 5 man’s – are completely overwhelming, heals-wise. Doesn’t sound like that’s the case.
Does Light of Dawn play any sort of role in the rotation btw?
Light of dawn isnt the stongest aoe heal by any stretch but every one of its heals transfers to beacon targets. With virtue a good light of dawn can really put a dent into empty health bars.
The thing that takes the most getting used to is that beacon of virtue and wings and crusader if you take it all have their own GCD. On fights where you want to line up a couple you really have to get used to that. My first issue I had on it was the third boss in underrot. I was very fresh 120 and healing mythic underrot last week around 345 ilvl. My group didnt care too much about clearing mushrooms and the second time the spores floated around was the killer. Something that is so obvious now took me 3 failed attempts to get then. Wings then beacon of virtue into your burst healing. A flash of light holy shock LoD combo feels about as good as anything on any healer. Make sure wings and beacon go up right before the damage comes out. And dont use virtue before your other CDs ever. Always wings or crusader and then beacon. The beacon of virtue doesnt last a ton of time and every GCD counts.
If and when you get and use glimmer make sure to keep that up on anyone who is gonna take damage. Glimmer healing adds up quick. I am hoping to put together a set for a judgement based build. That is some decent aoe as well and could add up on extended raid ffights nicely.
I can only talk PvE, I switched form this toon to Pally for Raiding since we needed better priority healing and Disc is very bad at that (could have done it as Holy but also wanted some of Pally’s utility).
With the right gear I gotta say it feels extremely strong in Raids, the glimmer build has the limitation of requiring melee range but if played properly is imo the No1 healer right now. Not only has great burst AOE during wings but also great sustained healing which mainly comes in the form of spot healing, it’s also insanely mana efficient.
I agree that AOE healing outside of CDs is not Paladin’s strong point, but if I can actually do equal (or even more) sustained healing through spot healing than the other healers are doing by using their AOE heals it means my healing is more valuable (spot healing is what keeps priority targets alive).
Wings is a really strong CD if used properly, just need to play it a bit more proactively and start ramping your glimmers a few seconds before the big hit (coming from Disc this came naturally for me).
For M+ I find it quite good too, compared to Disc it feels much easier to keep people up on the pally, just need to play around Beacon of Virtue for AOE healing, I think Holy Paladin is probably the best to deal with Bursting thanks to very strong burst healing
Edit: To clarify, the “Glimmer” build that suggests using Divine Purpose is more focused towards Raids, for Dungeons you should usually take Beacon of Virtue since it’s your best tool for on-demand AOE healing.
I’ve been holy pally since the BC days. Im currently using a more traditional spec. I use the good ol beacon of light. Holy light with the perk that boosts its range to 40y and bestow faith. I find that this combination works great for me for most 5 man content. Bursting affix being the hardest to deal with.
Holy pally has always had that AOE issue but it never stopped me from raiding or running dungeons succesfully.
Truly appreciate all of your guys’ feedback! I admittedly was skeptical about my healing 5 mans with pally in the end… but am optimistic now!
Thank you!
so for M+ hard affixes, does everyone that usually goes glimmer build run beacon of virtue?
I would definately say yes. Virtue is way more valuable than a couple free procs. But I am only running 2x glimmer. I play the spec exactly the same only i add in a beacon for mass aoe healing when needed.
I am sure people are making it work without it but I legit think beacon of virtue is one of my top 5 favorite spells in the game.
Thanks. Is your stat weight for glimmer or the default? Cause im not sure virtue is worth if my crit isnt high
My crit is 27% and my haste is 12% i have 600 points in mastery and about 550 in verse. I am actually at a point where I want to regem and enchant for some more haste. I would gladly give up 2% crit for 2-3% haste. Crit doesnt make or break virtue. Virtue is simply the most mana efficient and time efficient way to heal up a 5 man. I can largely ignore healing until everyone is close to death. Pop virtue and heal the 5th person and the rest are pretty well taken care of at the same time.
I am also looking and aiming to make a grace of the justicar set. This is just a side note and a way to boost hps in raids though. A higher haste and crit mix with judgement of light on a shorter CD is a pretty fun alternative playstyle.
Honestly the ability to alternate between a judgement build and the glimmer build is a huge driving factor to my wanting to play paladin right now. Both styles are pretty fun and both styles can make significant impact for a group.
As for beacon of virtue… if you can heal the content without it for sure go for it. Personally I find that I have to drink a lot less when I use virtue. Its value for money for sure. I only play beacon of faith in fights like conclave and jadefire masters. Both tanks need to be getting hit all the time for me to consider using it. As for divine purpose if only 1 tank is going to take damage at a time it is super worth and anytime I want to push more dps it is worth. I have to say bursting dps into the 25-30k range on a healer is pretty nice for open world and 5 man bosses where your team isn’t hurting for heals.
Yeah the “Glimmer build” is mostly for Raids, I mean Glimmer of Light is a strong trait for Dungeons as well but won’t be your No1 source of healing there (more like the 3rd or 4th) and you don’t need to play around it as much, and yes you should take Beacon of Virtue for Dungeons.
When in dungeons I actually tend to pay more attention to my glimmer for DPSing than I do for Healing (spreading it to multiple enemies), for healing I mean if I can sure I’ll try to optimize but usually just healing whoever needs healing and using Beacon of Virtue for AOE is more than enough.
Disc would like a word ![:wink:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/wink.png?v=6" ":wink:")
This. I’m actually just a disc priest in disguise right now. Bursting and grievous as disc can be big yikes. More so the latter.
I don’t run glimmer, so I typically spec into Bestow Faith on the first row (the delayed heal)
My “pro” tip is to cast Bestow Faith before the Holy light that leads into Beacon of Virtue, that way you can get a little extra AoE healing during beacon