Working on gearing up and getting ready to step into the arena on my paladin soon, there’s just a few questions I have about some builds. Also if anyone has a link to any good HPal guides it would be much appreciated.
Essences
I’ve seen people run Conflict, Crucible, Conduit, and Vision. I’d imagine it’s mostly a matchup thing, what kind of matchups do you play each?
I’d think it’s conduit vs Mage/Rogue/X in 3s or double dps in 2s and probably hunter teams, but anything else?
Crucible seems like it would be the play in most other situations, but where do Conflict and Vision fit in? Vision seems like it might be good against caster cleaves. Against melee cleaves to fit in blessed hands? Ultimate sac doesn’t seem necessary against those though?
It’s something that I’ll eventually feel out myself I guess but hoping to start with a decent foundation
For minors the choices look like the off picks from the majors. I can understand where Lucid Dreams and ERT might fit, but what about Formless Void, Artifice of Time, and Spirit of Preservation?
Gear Stats
I’ve seen Crit>Vers>Haste, but it seems like most people are gemming/enchant vers… even on players with relatively low overall vers who are forgoing vers for crit. Am I looking for any certain break points with regards to crit or haste? What haste % do you feel comfortable at? Is vers more important as certain comps or in 2s vs 3s? Also noticed that very few paladins wear any profession gear compared to any other class I’ve seen. Wondering if there’s an obvious reason for that?
Azerite Traits
How important is Indomitable Justice? Seems to be the trait to stack, but is that because other traits aren’t that powerful in PvP or because it’s really that strong? Would a 460 piece with IJ/LD be better than a 475 piece with GoL/LD? What about a 460 with IJ/GoL vs 475 RI/GoL? Is there much value in a single breaking dawn trait?
If you look char this is what I run 90% of the time in 2s/3s. I wish I had vitality conduit but I’m to lazy to grind it out so I run conflict for major. And indom justice is good as hpal I love doing as much dmg as possible in 2s I’m usually close to 15k dps+
Check out the loot district dot com
Conflict vs rogues (but not rogue/mage unless you are sure they will go on you) and slot cleanse the weak in the freed up honor talent spot.
Your conduit choice is correct.
Those extra minors you listed are all pretty underwhelming. Crucible minor is meh. Slot formless void or unwavering ward if you really need the corruption resist as you shouldn’t be casting flash of light in PvP.
Gear:
Crit 25-30%. Rest into vers. Try to avoid mastery as much as possible, it’s a mostly dead stat assuming you’re positioning correctly.
Traits:
Always 3x indom. The damage it does just makes it our best trait.
Always 1x light’s decree. 5 seconds on wings is incredibly nice.
Always 1x glimmer for dispel protection.
Last spot is really whatever but the current best option is the mastery on wings.
Breaking dawn doesn’t do much.
Not sure how many ilvls you have to go to make a downgrade in traits worth it. I’d assume for 15 ilvls you just want the better traits and for 30+ you probably want the piece.
Check out loot district as it’s really helpful. It’s a bunch of statistics on what is used by the highest rated players:
https://thelootdistrict.com/pvphub/essence/paladin/holy/?bracket=all
Yeah I’ve definitely used that as a starting point but it doesn’t give me specifics and since I’m very green on Pally it’s hard for me to parse some of the differences on when people are in slotting things for PvE content, the specific matchups for essences (like on the priest I’ve been maining I switch several essences and talents often and my " go to" spec is is just the setup that has the lowest potential to straight up lose me the game if I forget to switch before game), or the difference in power on azerite traits since at this point most high rated players have had ample time to get BiS traits on 475 - it’s not like earlier in the season where you can see when people are willing to wear lower azerite for specific traits.
makes sense