All Things Warcraft

Will post our loot and screen shot later!

My guild just downed Cho’Gall after 5 hours. We were about to call the raid, and decided to do one more attempts and did him flawlessly! This weekend we’re working on our server first Sinestra, so wish us luck! I will post a screen shot soon. :)

Aside from being my main’s spec and class, holy paladins are probably one of the most interesting healers currently in the Cataclysm expansion. With the immense amount of change that’s been cycling in and out of holy paladins, it’s no wonder many go Retribution or Protection instead. Holy paladins take a lot of patience and understanding to fully master how to heal as one. I will break down on what spec you should go for if you’re casually going into 5 mans, progressing with a 10 man or if you’re in a 25 man guild. If you also are leveling a paladin and choose to be holy in the future, this guide will help you find what stats you need on your gear, what gems you need to buy, how you need to reforge, and what you gear you should be aiming for.

1. Spec. 25 man healing:

10 Man healing:

While Word of Glory is a really good spell, it is mainly good for 10 mans for there are 15 less people to worry about having topped off at all times. As a 25 man raider, your main use of your holy power goes to Light of Dawn. All the time. The additional running speed in the ret tree makes getting to places faster and easier for you to stop and heal after getting out of fire or preventing getting hit by anything. 

Holy Shock is to be used on cool down at all times, and mix between using Divine Lights and Holy Lights when your Infusion of Light procs. You can Holy Light on down time to conserve your mana, and try to use Holy Radiance whenever it is off cool down as it will be at least 3rd in your top heals on recount. Always be assigned to a tank to heal and beacon the off tank. Your beacon heals should be second on your recount meter. 

2. Gems and Enchants:

• Head: Arcanum of Hyjal, Ember Shadowspirit Diamond.
• Shoulder: Either Therazane rep shoulder enchants, or inscription shoulder enchant.
• Chest: Peerless Stats (+20 stats)
• Bracers: Mighty Intellect (+50 intellect)
• Gloves: +50 haste
• Belt: Belt Buckle and +40 int gem
• Pants: Powerful Ghostly Spellthread
• Boots: Your choice of either haste or lavawalker. 
• Shield: +40 int
• Weapon: Power Torrent

Your gems should ALL be +40 intellect with the exception of having 2 +20 int/+20 haste gems to give you your meta bonus. Your stat priorities are: Intellect>Spirit>Haste>Crit>Mastery.

3. Reforging:

Reforging is quite simple. Where there is no haste on your gear, you reforge your mastery into haste, or if there is no mastery present, you reforge the other stat into haste. Never reforge your spirit out. If there is haste and spirit on your gear, you do not touch it at all. You have to reforge all you can to haste, for with your judgement buff, you should be at a 1.7-1.8 Holy Light cast speed.

4. Gear:

Currently, Tier 11 has the absolute worst stats we holy paladins can have currently. With Crit and Mastery being some of the main stats on the tier pieces, it definitely is not worth getting any of the tier; therefore, you can save your Valor points for the trinket and rings and even your offspec pieces. (Tier 4 piece for both prot and ret are the best this tier). Your gear should look like this: 

• Glaciated Helm
• Valiona’s Medalion or Wyrmbreaker’s Amulet
• Burden of Mortality or your Tier shoulders.
• Drape of the Twins
• Breastplate of Avenging Flame
• Shackles of the End of Days (Or the ZA bracers for a placement pair)
• Flash Freeze Gauntlets
• Sun King’s Girdle
• Legguards of the Emerald Brood
• Life Force Chargers
• Band of Secret Names and Security Measure Alpha
• Core of Ripeness and Fall of Mortality
• Twilight’s Hammer or Andoros, Fist of the Dragon King
• Kingdom’s Heart

Although this is a really great gear set-up, it’s not what you exactly need. You can get the Undertow belt from the Conclave of Wind which is great for its haste, and if you don’t have access to raids, the ZA/ZG gear plus the tier is helpful if you can’t get the guild to be successful in raids. The alchemist trinket is also a really great trinket for starting healers. The crafted gear are also great pieces to pick up to start. 

5. Conclusion

With this thorough guide, it can help you know what kind of gear and stats you are looking for. If you’ve just recently finished leveling up, I suggest picking up the spec I have placed above, run some regulars, get your gear crafted, and start learning your class. As much as I type on here, the best way to learn your class is by actually playing it and getting out there. Good luck as a holy paladin in the Cataclysm expansion!

-ATW

jdluthi-deactivated20111205 asked: The info was helpful, thanks!

You’re very welcome. If you have any more questions, just always feel free to ask.

jdluthi-deactivated20111205 asked: I'm a lvl 73 disc/holy priest and I'm new to raiding. I'm more comfortable being a disc priest just because that's how I heal in dungeons, but I was reading online that a disc priest in a raid as a healer isn't very useful.. so my off spec is holy because I want to heal. So my questions:
1. Is that true, that I couldn't be an efficient healer in a raid as a disc priest?
2. What are the gear differences between a disc and holy priest? Right now I'm intellect > spirit > haste.

Sorry to make this so long. I just have a load of questions because like everyone else, I want to be the best at my class. lol, thank you!

1. Disc healing is very situational in Cata raiding and is a lot different than the standard “Heal everything and AoE heal everything for great success”. As much as Disc is a great healing spec, it really is only used for some fights. For example, being disc is great on Omnitron Defense System, Maloriak, Atramedes, and Nefarian in Blackwing Descent. It’s also good on Cho’Gall in Bastion of Twilight. Where your Power Word: Barrier is the main reason why disc is chosen on these fights, having bubbles is the key to great healing in disc. Holy, however, is greatly superior and mostly used in raids, so start getting comfortable with Holy healing as well as disc. 
2. The stats for both Holy and Discipline are the same. Int>Spirit>Mastery>Crit=Haste. Crit and haste can be equally balanced to fit each other to not have too much and not have too little. Mastery is amazing for both specs and are the main focus for healing. Never reforge out of mastery, and gem either pure +40 int, or +20 int, +20 mastery (for yellow gem sockets) and +20 int +20 spirit (for blue gem sockets).