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[4.1.0] Holy Paladin PvP Guide
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Post by
Azazel
1. Intro
2. Talents
3. Spells
4. Gearing
5. Macros
6. Credits
1. Intro
Hello, my name is extermianner and this is the first guide I've ever wrote. This guide will focus on the Holy Paladin in PvP, not my favorite class/spec in PvP, but I think it's doing fine nonetheless. I've been doing Holy since season 8 and Cataclysm brought a lot of changes to us. Of all the classes/specs Holy was one of the most changed ones, so if you've been on a break from before Cataclysm or just not played it for the last few months, you might feel a little confused. This guide is made to help you start out on this and I hope to keep it up to date through later patches.
Post by
Azazel
2. Talents
This is the basic build for 3v3 arena.
Most people use this while mixing and matching a little with 2-3 points.
This is one of the most obvious talents, extra free healing on yourself on all heals you don't cast on yourself? Yes please!
Try to keep this up at all times, faster heals = more heals over time.
This is mandatory too; Half a second off 2 of your main healing spells is a must-have.
We're only putting 1 point into this as it's not going to be used very often and only affects 1 spell.
Must have. Helps a lot in tight situations.
Infusion of Light
A Holy Light or Divine Light reduced to ~1 second cast time is beast. Mandatory.
Holy Shock is your main Holy Power builder and should be used as often as possible, being able to use it even more is very nice. Mandatory.
We'll only put 1 point into this as it should make you hit capped through your amount of Spirit (we'll get back to that later).
Beacon of Light
Must have. Allows you to heal more than 1 person at a time.
Speed of Light
Mandatory again, you don't want to miss out on 3% more haste and a Sprint ability.
Speaks for itself.
Not mandatory, but very good nonetheless. Extra healing is always welcome.
Aura Mastery
Mandatory, this will be a lifesaver when the enemy team tries to burst you down.
Paragon of Virtue
Mandatory, reducing the CD on 3 of your most handy spells. (Pun not intended.)
Must. Have. This way Holy Shock will not be your only Holy Power builder.
Only 1 point in this one because of the 8 second CD. It will proc almost if not just as much as if you had 2 points in it.
Now, you may have noticed I haven't taken
Light of Dawn
. Why, you ask. Because it does so little healing at so huge a cost that it simply isn't worth it.
I also strongly recommend this. You won't have to run into range of things like
Blind
or
Cyclone
when trying to gain
.
Almost if not completely mandatory. 30% more healing on Holy Shock saves you a lot of mana.
Mandatory. If you're lucky this will allow you to spam Word of Glory.
This is where you should take points from to create a spec that matches your style. Most people that don't use this spec have taken these points and put them into
or
.
Glyphs
Prime:
Charred Glyph
,
Charred Glyph
and
Charred Glyph
Major:
Charred Glyph
,
Charred Glyph
and
Charred Glyph
Minor:
Charred Glyph
,
Charred Glyph
, last one is your choice.
Post by
Azazel
3. Spells
Beacon of Light
A core ability for the Holy Paladin, an ability introduced with WotLK to help Holy healing multiple targets at once. It is one of our signature spells and should be permanently up. But who should you put it on? Before starting an arena battle you will have it on yourself. In a battle target-switching will happen and there's a chance you don't know where to put it. It goes as follows:
1 teammate is being attacked
. Put it on that teammate for
procs. You will save a lot of mana by doing this.
You and 1 teammate are being attacked
. Let's assume those that attacks you receive the exact same damage. Here you will want beacon on yourself. Why?
.
2 teammates are being attacked, you aren't
. Put the beacon on the one taking the LEAST damage. Why? Because the teammate with beacon on receives only 50% of the healing the one who doesn't have beacon on receives.
All 3 of you are getting attacked.
Put it on yourself. You will miss out on the
procs, but how much healing does a dead healer do?
Auras
Aura Mastery
It is advised to use this when you know you're going to get silenced and/or interrupted. When used correctly, it's a very handy tool when the enemy team tries to burst you down.
It was "nerfed" in 4.1.0. Now it can't be used when
Crusader Aura
is up, resulting in no real difference.
is the one you will use the most. When somebody is attacking you this effect is going to save your life.
Crusader Aura
is useful when charging the enemy, but should be changed immediately after dismounting.
All other auras are pretty useless, except
when playing against teams that aren't spell pen capped. This won't happen in higher ratings though.
Healing spells
Holy Shock
As already stated above, your main Holy Power builder. Use this every time you can.
Word of Glory
Your secondly most used spell. It costs no mana and is instant which makes it very effective.
A mana efficient slow-cast heal. Should be used when having good time and teammates aren't taking much damage.
Holy Light
A high-cost high-healing spell for when your teammates are taking heavy damage. The main reason why I say teammates is because it's a very easy spell to interrupt when people are attacking you.
Flash of Light
Fast mana-depleting heal. This should only, I repeat only, be used when your target is taking too much damage to keep up with over heals. Be very careful with this, it eats mana just as fast as my brothers eat their happy meals on a McDonald's.
Your only healing over time spell. Good healing on multiple targets, but mainly used because of the talent above (60% more speed for 4 seconds). The sprint goes extremely well in conjuction with
Lay on Hands
Cannot be used in arena, but it's a lifesaver when getting overwhelmed by enemies.
Hands spells and CDs
Blessing of Freedom
This will help annoy the crap out of classes like Warriors and Frost Mages. Should be used as much as possible.
Divine Shield
When everything else fails and you're getting low on health, use this. If the enemy team don't have any bubble dispels and aren't fools, they will immediately switch to one of your teammates and try and burst them down while you're busy healing yourself. You have to watch your teammates a lot for the 8 seconds this spell lasts.
Blessing of Protection
This is mostly used on teammates getting bursted down by enemy physical classes. You will only want to use this on yourself when
Divine Shield
is on CD and you're getting bursted. Bear in mind that you have Forbearance for 1 minute after using either of these on yourself.
Blessing of Sacrifice
This will obviously help when your teammates are focus-fired, but it can also be used to break CC. E.g. a Mage is casting Polymorph on you while the other team is killing your teammates. If you cast this before being CCed, the damage you take will break the CC.
Hand of Reckoning
(and
Righteous Defense
) can pull pets off your teammates. This can make or break a game when fighting Hunters and Warlocks.
Divine Protection
Don't hesitate to use when getting focus-fired. As of the latest hotfix,
Speed of Light
will proc from this too, giving us 2 sprint abilities.
Extra healing when under pressure.
Avenging Wrath
Again, extra healing.
A strong CD, will allow you to heal more through the extra crits and faster cast times.
A spell that was nerfed pre-cata, but still useful. Be careful when you use it as it cuts your heals in half.
Seals
is what you will have on most of the time. Both because of the glyph and because you can bash the enemy team a little to get mana back.
You're only going to use this against people using speed increases. It can be destroying against Druids of any spec, but won't have much other use.
Offensive abilites
Judgment
Use it every time you can without risking the life of teammates.
Crusader Strike
if you can get it in, another Holy Power is nice.
Hammer of Wrath
Will help finish the enemy off.
Rebuke
Will make casters hate you and helps a ton for avoiding CC.
Hammer of Justice
A signature spell that helps getting an enemy down. Use it wisely.
Helps getting enemies down, but is very costly, be careful when spamming it.
Consecration
Your most costly spell. Only use when you're sure you can get an enemy out of Stealth. But you will almost never be using it.
Denounce
Can be used to stun Warlock/Death Knight pets.
Turn Evil
Used to fear Warlock/Death Knight pets.
Post by
Azazel
4. Gearing
Gems:
Meta socket: Your choice here, get one with Intellect or Spirit.
Red socket:
Brilliant Inferno Ruby
Yellow socket:
Potent Ember Topaz
Blue socket:
Purified Demonseye
Enchants:
Head:
Arcanum of Hyjal
or
Arcanum of Vicious Intellect
Shoulder:
Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone
or
Greater Inscription of Vicious Intellect
Cloak:
Enchant Cloak - Greater Intellect
Gloves:
Enchant Gloves - Greater Mastery
Wrist:
Enchant Bracer - Exceptional Versatility
Boots:
Enchant Boots - Lavawalker
Legs:
Powerful Enchanted Spellthread
Chest:
Enchant Chest - Mighty Armor
Shield:
Enchant Off-Hand - Superior Intellect
Weapon:
Enchant Weapon - Heartsong
or
Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent
Reforge everything to Spirit as it's our strongest stat. More Spirit means you will have mana longer and therefore survive longer.
Post by
Azazel
5. Macros
#showtooltip Hammer of Wrath
/cast Hammer of Wrath Hammer of Wrath
So you can fire it without having to select the enemy first.
#showtooltip Hammer of Justice
/cast Hammer of Justice
Standard focus cast macro, this way it will be harder for the enemy to see when you're going to use HoJ.
#showtooltip Rebuke
/cast Rebuke
Same as the one above, but with Rebuke instead. Will make it much harder to see when you're going to use it.
#showtooltip Judgement
/assist
/cast Judgement
/targetlasttarget
An automatic Judgement, no deselecting once again.
#showtooltip
/cast Righteous Defense;
For taunting pets off of teammates.
#showtooltip Exorcism
/cast Exorcism Exorcism
Starts casting Excorcism on an enemy target.
#showtooltip Turn Evil
/stopcasting
/targetexact Ebon Gargoyle
/cast Turn Evil
/targetlasttarget
This will fear an enemy Death Knight's Ebon Gargoyle. If there's none of those up it will start fearing your current target.
Post by
Azazel
6. Credits
Lots of credit to Kcejdrolmai from arenajunkies.com. I doubt I would've been able to write this without help from him.
Onimushua for pointing out that I swapped 2 numbers.
Xoriouz for pointing out 2 missing spells.
Flonette for suggesting a Beacon of Light guide.
Post by
Azazel
Last reserve, just incase
Post by
606231
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Azazel
You're missing Divine Light, the is wrong.
Fix'd that.
Post by
Azazel
Are there no mods online to check this? >.>
Post by
366611
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Azazel
You forgot Divine Favor and Divine Plea
Fix'd. Welcome to the credits.
Post by
Flonnette
Beacon of Light probably needs a section for itself. Its really poor as "...heal more than 1 person at a time..." effect but is stellar as a healing bonus. The mechanisms, interaction and effect aren't obvious (and not clearly documented) where if anything it can get confusing to new players even ones who play other healers but that goes beyond the PVP/PVE topic.
Post by
Azazel
Made a Beacon of Light guide, thank you for your contribution.
Post by
542679
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Azazel
Some people might be confused if I listed that many at once, so I chose to only show those that are BiS for PvP.
Post by
542679
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Azazel
They are BiS for the spec I listed. :P
Post by
Azazel
I just got the sticky achievement, but this thread hasn't been stickied. Suspicious.
Post by
hatman555
I just got the sticky achievement, but this thread hasn't been stickied. Suspicious.
I see it listed now in the
Paladin helpful threads
. I really havn't posted to this because I know so little about holy. Would their be any way to change the formating a little. The whole double spaced look doesn't sit right with me. Does anyone else feel that way? It looks very, very listy......
Cheers,
Hat
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