[Holy-Paladin] Do any ElitistJerks-style guides exist?

Nothing's been written up on Elitist Jerks, I can't find anything here, or on the WoW Forums.

Might help if you specified pally or priest. Though I don't know of any for either (since I haven't really looked.)

http://www.icy-veins.com/ is usually a pretty good place to start - up to date and well written

A few notes from a just dinged 90 Holy Paladin:

-- IMO, stat priority is Spirit >>>> Haste = Mastery >>>> Critical Strike. At 455 gearing, I have about 3.1k Haste, 3.0k Mastery and 1.0k Critical Strike and that seems to be about the right mix to get a 2.1 second Holy Light/Divine Light cast but have Illuminated Healing account for a TON of your damage mitigation.

-- I am a huge fan of Sacred Shield over Eternal Flame. I think the the opportunity cost of using your precious Holy Power on EF is huge when compared about getting a WoG or LoD cast. SS is nothing special or sexy but I see a huge difference in tank damage intake when it is up on him or when I get distracted and allow it to fall off.

-- I am also a huge fan of Holy Prism; it ROCKS as a healing spell when cast on an enemy. I have only been level 90 for about 2 hours played and have not even tried the other choices but the ability is so good that I keep counting down its 20 sec CD so that I can use it again RIGHT NOW.

-- Do we even have Holy Radiance as a spell anymore? In my mind, it has gone by the wayside just like Holy Wrath and Consecrate and Judgment have (we technically still have the ability to cast Judgment but why? It gives us zero benefit and is much less damage than Denounce). When I get to raids, I might find use for it in a ten man raid when we group up during sustained AoE damage but right now? If I know I have a high damage AoE phase coming up, I will bank 5x Holy Power and save my Holy Prism CD and then spank the AoE damage with LoD, HPrism, Holy Shock, LoD and just see all the health return to 100%.

-- I did glyph Battle Healer and after running 5x heroic 5-mans last night, was underwhelmed. Melee for SoI mana returns, not for the healing from the glyph. If there were a better choice to take...

-- So, Beacon on the tank, SS on the tank, Holy Shock on CD (typically on the tank), Holy Prism on CD and then pretty much chain cast Holy Light on someone who is not the tank for 100% Beacon transfers is your "rotation." It is very mana friendly and has, thus far, taken care of 85% of all damage taken by a tank/party that is playing fairly well.

[NOTE: I find that I am "holding" 5x Holy Power a lot during my above "rotation" because I have no real need to expend it.]

-- If damage is heavier than that, my first choice is to hit my CD "power ups" in Divine Favor and Avenging Wrath (and Holy Avenger if you spec into it) and still use the same mana friendly "rotation" as above to combat the damage while expending my Holy Power on WoG/LoD as needed.

-- If the poop hits the fan, then my "max-HPS" move is to hit GanK and then bomb Divine Light until it ends while still weaving in HS and HP on CD. It drains your mana but keeps your group alive to continue fighting. I am not finding much use of FoL except in the situation where the DPS is about to die "right now" and you need to try and save him.

I am ending most fights at about 50% mana or above and the only fight that I am consistantely OOM on is the last boss of Mog'shan Palace because there is just so much "casual" AoE damage going out and so many damage mechanics that most DPS cannot be arsed to get out of the "bad."

But, I am not finding the Holy Paladin healing to be much different from Cata other than the complete lack of Holy Radiance use and the addition of Holy Prism which, IMO, completely replaces HR for 5-man use. Back to single-targe "whack a mole" healing a whole lot.

IS

Oh wow that actually hurt to read. :\

Hey there,

I have been looking, but also stymied on the Hpally guide front.

Some tidbits from my own, very basic, observations:
1) I wasn't comfortable for raids until I had ~10k+ in-combat regen (~9000 static spirit)
2) Check your tooltips for the mana costs of each spell to get a basic idea what 'rotations' are intensive, and what aren't.
3) As Ironshaft mentioned, Holy Light filler spam is a big thing. I find myself doing this a lot, and with 10k + regen, you can do this and still slowly regain mana, other things being equal.
4) Prism is powerful, hitting for ~45k (non crit) to 80k (crit)(460~ilvl) single target, and something similar but a touch less when bounced off an enemy. However, be careful when talenting it due to its limited range.
5) For stack AoE fights, I have found Light's Hammer tops out Prism by a huge margin.
6) Radiance is still very powerful, but must be used judicially due to its high mana cost. Note that the single target heal component of the spell hits hard, so choose wisely between HR and DL when healing, since they have identical mana costs.
7) Flash sees little use for me now, due to its exorbitant mana cost.
8) Pooling Holy Power is definitely a viable strategy and I've found it to be crucial in my first week of MoP raid healing.

The mana-management game is back in full force for healers it looks like, and I'm loving it. :D

Edit: Touching on SS vs EF, SS appears to be the way to go, from the feel of it and based on logs. I am also a fan of the no-GCD beacon glyph, since I find it situationally (ELEGON!) very useful to swap my beacon around when it isn't tanks I need to be worrying about.

Just putting it out there that SS becomes interesting when you're running with a paladin tank so take that into consideration. Also EF blanketing is a very viable and powerful tactic on some fights when paired with holy avenger. A 30 second hot is extremely potent when you can blanket a bunch of people with it, especially when it transfers through beacon.

Levantine wrote:Oh wow that actually hurt to read. :\

Why? Because of formatting or because you disagree with what I wrote?

As for the EF paired with Holy Avenger, I had not really thought of that combo as being very powerful and it sounds like it is. I was very much pairing Holy Avenger with an AoE spam of HS, LoD, HR, LoD, wait a beat, HS, LoD, HR, LoD, etc. That is a very good point and one that I think I need to try out.

IS

Auracle wrote: Some tidbits from my own, very basic, observations:
1) I wasn't comfortable for raids until I had ~10k+ in-combat regen (~9000 static spirit)

That is an excellent rule of thumb. I currently only have about 5.5k static Spirit in 455 gearing so it appears that I need to figure out how to boost that well. Do you typically use a Spirit flask when raiding?

Auracle wrote: 5) For stack AoE fights, I have found Light's Hammer tops out Prism by a huge margin.

I will have to give it a try for when I get to raids. For 5-mans, there does not seem to be any "stack" phases in many fights.

Auracle wrote: 7) Flash sees little use for me now, due to its exorbitant mana cost.

About the only compelling reason I see for FoL is if you choose to glyph it in order to add a +10% heal to your next heal on that target (tank). If, then, the tank is low, you FoL him and then DL him in order to get the boost. I don't find it very compelling but it is perhaps viable in some situations.

Auracle wrote: The mana-management game is back in full force for healers it looks like, and I'm loving it.

Yeah, I don't know that they have gotten all the way to the "triage" model yet where many in the raid/party are not fully healed up for long portions of the fight and you are struggling to keep people above 50% health. But, certainly, if you don't watch your mana now, you will be OOM before you can believe it and it is at least a step in the direction of making some spell choices "interesting."

IS

http://iam.yellingontheinternet.com/201 ... -problems/

Leaving this here. While I don't agree with all of Hamlet's finer points, it's a very good read and I agree with the majority of it. Also don't use spirit flasks and food unless you've already regemmed to full spirit and still need more mana, in which case you have bigger problems.

I've been running Prism for 5 mans as well, and glyphed LoD, which I find to be very effective. Hamemr seem's to be more handy throughout 'most' of the Vaults fights however, according to my 1st week's experience.

I started off flasking Int with around 9k spirit (all spirit or int/spirit hybrid gems and ilvl 459 to start out) but because we changed to 2 healing from Gara'jal through to Elegon, I switched to spirit to try and stave off going oom that much longer. This move was also based on 2-healing with a resto druid, thus less pressure to top-off.

Given a few upgrades this week I'm 467 and am going to be flasking/eating Int food and see how I feel.

Thanks for the link Levantine, going to go take a look now