World of Warcraft™

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Spell Selection:
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How to heal:

TL;DR Version:

-Beacon of Light should stay on your tank. Don't defer from that.
-You now only have to judge once every minute thanks to the Enlightened Judgments change.
-Holy shock on cooldown, if you can help it.
-Always try to use your Holy Power. HP Not used is an overal decrease in HPS performance assuming that HS is off CD or you are directly healing your Beaconed target. Paladin healers heal like mage DPS. Don't forget this.
-Use your cooldowns wisely, I'll go into detail for that a little.

In 4.3 and and in Dragon Soul, you'll find more times than not that you'll be healing the raid a lot. Fights like Deathwing's Spine and Madness really allow you to utilize Beacon of Light to the fullest by spot healing the raid tons and using HR left and right, in conjunction with LoD.

Judging has been changed, and so is our interaction with Spirit. We no longer Judge every 8 seconds, but once every 30 seconds - minute now. This is because Judgement of the Pure (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=53671) has been changed to give us 30% increased mana regen from Spirit while in combat. Think Holy Concentration.

HL, DL, and FoL still play the same role they have been throughout this expansion, and to that extent have not changed. In my findings however on the PTR and live you will be using DL/FoL way more than you will be seeing HL. I believe that's the intent overall. Holy Shock is still delicious and with Daybreak/Infusion of Light you should always try to use it on cooldown.

Holy Radiance:

This spell has changed - drastically. Lets look at the tooltip first:

Imbues a friendly target with radiant energy, healing that target and all allies within 10 yards for 2623 to 3205 and another 0 every 1 sec for 3 sec. Healing effectiveness diminishes for each player target beyond 6.

If you're confused by this, it's a combination of Prayer of Healing and our old Holy Radiance. It heals up front, with a 3 second HoT (affected and increased by haste) after. The spell's overall throughput goes at about 66/33 (burst heal/hot), with Mastery affecting an even smaller portion of that - but don't let that fool you. Holy Radiance is very, very, very good. You will be using this spell a lot in Dragon Soul. (More information on the haste ticks below)

In addition to Holy Radiance's change, you now earn one Holy Power every time you cast it, due to Tower of Radiance (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=85512). The intent behind this is so that Holy Radiance and Light of Dawn can have more synergy with each other and as such be a strong combo (think Healing Rain and Chain Heal).

I want to clarify the one thing that people seem to get confused by this talent: You do not need to cast HR on the Beaconed target in order to gain HP from it. I repeat: You DO NOT need to cast HOLY RADIANCE on the BEACONED target to get HP from it. You do however, still need to cast DL/FoL on the Beaconed target in order to gain HP that way.

Cooldowns:

Avenging Wrath is delicious. Use it a few seconds before a tough situation comes down and cast away. I like to use it with Divine Favor and Holy Radiance. Just try it and see.

GoTAK (affectionately called Angel Bro) copies your spell and does a splash heal of 10% of the heal to 5 people around the target (Hello Holy Light Glyph!). In my experiences, I do not use GoTAK for it's AE healing capabilities as much as I do to get 5 people up quickly.

Divine Favor is a great spell overall. In my opinion it's best used with Holy Radiance, but it's just a spell that's great overall. It provides haste, it makes spells quicker and combined with BL it has devestating effects.

Hand of Sacrifice is a wonderful tool that's mostly used on tanks. It reduces damage by 30% by transferring that 30% to you. You can use it with Engineer Bubble, or Divine Shield. It's great.

Aura Mastery is a jack of all trades tool that can fit most in every fight. What it does: Take your current aura and make it 100% better. I mostly find myself using it with Resistance Aura, and if you do the math the amount of damage mitigated from it is jaw dropping.

Lay on Hands, I don't need to get into this one, right? Don't use it with people that have forbearance on them. You'll be shocked to see that it won't work. :P Edit: Also, if glyphed, it returns 10% of your mana!

Divine Plea is best used in transition phases. Such as jumping from platform to platform on Madness of Deathwing. It is affected by Intellect buffs such as Engineer Gloves and even the Int buff from Divine Hymn. You are also even able to use it with Potion of Concentration. Do not use any spells outside of HS and HL during Divine Plea. It will make healing and using the spell pointless. You want to conserve mana during the duration.

Divine Protection is best used as a personal cooldown. I don't mean this in a show-off way but it essentially negates any elemental damage done to you, ESPECIALLY glyphed.

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Spec and Glyphs:
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http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/talent-calculator#bc00!bPgZhWQQSW!jg!Yd!YgRjQkPKq

Is the suggested talents and glyphs that you use.

Glyphs such as Word of Glory and Divine Favor can be switched out easily for fights that need it. Glyph of Light of Dawn was recently changed to heal 2 fewer targets, but 25% more. I still use WoG/Insight/HS as Prime because I find that I use those the most.

Major Glyphs: I chose Divine Prot, LoH and Divine Plea with Divine Prot being able to switch out. Not all fights have Magic damage (though some do), so often times I will switch it out for say, LoD or BoL.

Lylthe's Opinion:

Prime Glyphs
Seal of Insight is mandatory.

Pick your 2 favorites out of Divine Favor, Holy Shock and Word of Glory. I personally use Holy Shock and Word of Glory.

Major Glyphs
We actually have a lot of choices here, all of them situational. It costs 10g to swap a glyph. You SHOULD carry a stack of Dust of Disappearance with you and switch glyphs as the fight calls for. The vendor can

be found near any inscription trainer.

Your choices are:
Light of Dawn
Divine Plea
Divinity
Divine Protection
Beacon of Light
Cleanse

Divine Plea, Divinity, Beacon of Light and Cleanse are mana saving CD's. Divine Plea is likely going to give you 12% mana. On a long fight you might use it 3x for 18%. Divinity is set at 10%.

At 120k mana, it takes 9 Beacon Swaps for beacon to beat Divinity and 19 Cleanses per fight to beat Divinity. So for cleanse heavy fights, it may be worth glyphing.

I do not advocate Lay on Hands. Even at 7 minutes, you're only going to use this once/fight unless it's a long fight and you blow it early.

Divine Protection is good for magic heavy fights.

Source: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1406258637#4

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Stat Analysis
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I'm going to quote Lylthe for this bit because I didn't feel like typing it all up, and I have more to add due to the new HR:

Before I get into spell selection, here are the nitty gritty details about how spells generally work. In general, the amount you heal for is:
Final Heal = K * ( Base Power + SP Coefficient * Spell Power)

There are a few exceptions, but I'll discuss those specifically when I get there. Final heal is the green number that pops on your screen. Your spell tooltip displays this number as well. For simplicity, I only consider the average.

K is the totality of all % bonuses. These stack in strange ways. Through experimentation, I've determined that normally K = (1 + .05 SoI Glyph+ 1.10 WitL) * 1.06 Divinity * 1.09 Conviction = 1.32871 I honestly have no idea if the self-healing from Divinity multiplies or adds, or where it would go. If I had to GUESS: Self-healing Divinity K = (1+.05+.1)*(1.06+.06)*1.09 but that's purely speculative.

Conviction does not proc off Holy Radiance ticks.

For HPS/HPM numbers, I ignore RNG in the form of crits, procs and mastery. If you'd like to include crits, multiply K by (1 + Crit%). Likewise I ignore mastery. To include mastery, multiply K by (1+Shield%)*P for appropriate spells, where P is the probability a shield will be consumed. With changes in 4.2, P is approaching 1. Procs are somewhat more complicated to consider, but can be statistically modelled.

The final heal, and HPS/HPM numbers are based on a paladin in ilvl 359 gear starting Firelands with full raid buffs.
5000 Int Paper Doll Int
8386 Spell Power
774 Haste (25% raid buffed haste)

Holy Shock
Instant, 6 sec CD
1873 Mana
HS K = (1 + .05 SoI + 1.10 WitL + 0.3) * 1.06 Divinity * 1.09 Conviction = 1.67533
Heal = K*(2740 + 0.2687 * Spell Power) = 8365.6
HPS - 7529.29 (Over 1 GCD)
HPM - 5.102 (Actually higher due to HP generation)

Holy Light
2.5 Sec
2740 Mana
Normal K = 1.3287
Heal = K*(4400 + 0.4321*Spell Power) = 10661
HPS - 5757.244
HPM - 3.793

Divine Light
2.5 Sec
8198 Mana
Normal K = 1.3287
Heal = K*(11733 + 1.153*Spell Power) = 28437
HPS - 15356.52
HPM - 3.469

Flash of Light
1.5 Sec
7261 Mana
Normal K = 1.3287
Heal - K*(7329 + 0.863*Spell Power) = 19353
HPS - 17418.64
HPM - 2.665

Light of Dawn Per Holy Power Per Person
Instant
Normal K = 1.3287
Heal = K*(640 + 0.132*Spell Power) = 2321

LoD isn't really a cone. It's a 10 yard wide by 28 yard long rectangle.

Spell Statistics:

First: Stat weighting is NOT THAT IMPORANT. Having more stats is always good, but the exact balance won't make or break you. Know what the stats do and shuffle them to support YOUR playstyle.

Rating Conversions:
Due to rounding errors, these numbers are not exact.
179.2 Crit Rating ~= 1% Crit
128.125 Haste Rating ~=1% Haste
179.2 Mastery Rating ~= 1 Mastery = 1.5% Shields

649 Intellect ~= 1% Spell Crit (Paladins inherently have 3.36% crit with 0 Intellect)
1 Intellect = 15 Mana (The first 20 points of intellect only give 1 mana)
1 Intellect = 1 Spellpower

Stat Weighting
1) Intellect
2) Spirit to Comfort
3) Haste to Comfort
4) Mastery
5) Crit

The rationale behind this is
1) You need a base amount for % benefits to work off of. Int also does lots of other good things
2) Have enough mana to avoid OOMing.
3) Don't let someone die to Reflex Fail.
4) Stat dump to everything else.

There's a lot of debate of ideal balance of secondary stats. If the above guidelines aren't specific enough for you, here's some more things to consider.

Are you going OOM? Yes, get more spirit.

"To comfort" is fuzzy, so even though this is going to bite me in the !@#, aim for 2900 spirit. More or less is personal preference, but fully buffed this amount will let you spam HL/HS/filler at a mana neutral rate.


Source: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1406258637#5


For the most part, the quoted above is correct. Nothing for our single target heals have changed. This remains to be true from the math I've seen and read. What's important, however, is the change to HR and how you interact with it. It can decide your gearing and gemming scheme for your character.

Holy Radiance in 4.3/Haste Debate:

This is the spreadsheet I am using, reference it at your leisure. It's an amazing tool, done by some spectacular theorycrafters:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?authkey=CKPti9oE&hl=en_US&key=0AsDL8HE-bGDVdEU1S1NqMW5IbWU1dURKcmdibFFTeVE&authkey=CKPti9oE&hl=en_US&f=true&noheader=false&gid=29 (Credit to Lebeau and friends)

What we want to focus on is the grey area.

The Haste Argument:

(Please reference page 6-7)
Use this spreadsheet (Anohako's): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArjIvkTY1iOAdGRtQi1iY01PWGJsOFR6OGpfRE54VEE#gid=0

I'm going to say this right off the bat:

The math on haste illustrates that Haste provides a significant amount of HPS (about double) more than mastery or crit does. If you are going for haste, regardless of the thresholds, you are gearing purely for the HPS factor of it. Mastery still has more HPM, however.

Nothing has changed since 4.2 when it comes to mastery. It's really that simple. If you see haste, take it. If you see crit or mastery on a piece of gear, reforge out of it. If you're coming from 4.2 and a Haste/Spirit build, and you want to stay this way, carry on. You're not doing anything 'wrong,' and you can heal content perfectly fine the way you are.

Stat priority for Haste build:
-Int
-Spirit (TO COMFORT)
-Haste (You would of course stack the crap out of this)
-Mastery=Crit, I would put these at a 1:1 ratio of you can help it.


Update: The math is out on it, courtesy of Anohako, that Haste is indeed better when it comes to HPS, and other facets. I will repeat this tremendously and clearly: Haste is better HPS. IF you prefer that playstyle, if you want to gear for haste, then continue to do so - you are not doing anything wrong by doing so.

The Mastery Argument:

***This argument is for the sake of argument, it is a viable playstyle.***

With the introduction of Holy Radiance, the way we are going to gear for 4.3 is going to be very (almost complete opposite) of what we have been doing in 4.2. Let me explain.

As you can see, line 17/18 shows that with just 3/3 Speed of Light, Judgements of the Pure, and the 5% Haste buff from Spriest/Boomkin, you need 3493 haste to achieve the 5th tick. While this is a feasible goal for haste, it is not by any way effecient at all. If you do aim to get to the 3494 haste threshold you will be sacrficing throughput. While haste is strong, that much haste will only scale inversely because of how fast you would be casting. The faster you cast, the more mana you waste.

So the only logical haste threshold to follow after that is in line 19 and 20:

With 3/3 Speed of Light, Judgements of the Pure, 5% Spriest/Boomkin buff, and Divine Favor you can reach the 5th tick of Holy Radiance. For both 17/18 and 19/20 you still hit the fourth tick. That's great. But with 19/20 you are reaching the fith tick for less Haste, but only during the duration of Divine Favor.

Now, you may be thinking: Why gem and gear outside of haste? It's the best.

Well. Yes. It is. Haste is no doubt a straight throughput buff. But since the 5th tick of Holy Radiance without Divine Favor factoring in is too high to say that it's safe to use (you will sacrifice other important stats such has Int, Spirit, or even a trinket slot), the only efficient goal for this patch would be the 777 haste breakpoint.

That said, what should you go into after you've reached this really easy breakpoint? The numbers are still out, and take this with a grain of salt, but after speaking to some other Paladins this is what your stat priority will look like:

-Int
-Haste (up to 777)
-Spirit (Up to roughly high 2000, or 3000 assuming a nice Spirit trinket)
-Mastery
-Crit (Remember, Crit affects healing effects by 200 - 205%~!)

Now, it is important to remember that in 4.3 while mastery affects most of our spells, it still does not affect Holy Radiance fully. You see, Holy Radiance's total throughput is divided into somewhat of a 66%/33% split between the burst and HoT, and Mastery only affects the burst heal, not the HoT.

That doesn't go to say that Mastery is bad, I actually prefer mastery to crit considering Mastery is much more stable than crit is.

***Your playstyle is what you need to consider here. By this point, if you feel comfortable going crit after haste, then go crit. If you're comfortable with mastery, go mastery. If you want a split even between the two: report back to us and let us know how it is.***

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Stats Continued: Gemming/Enchanting/Reforging
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Quoting Lylthe again, with some edit's to fit the current epic gem model:

Sometimes it's worth sacrificing intellect for lesser stats. I'd recommend these guidelines:
-Don't forget to activate your meta with 2 yellow.
-If short on haste, trade 10 int for 20 haste or better.
-Do not trade int for crit.
-If good on haste and in heroic gear, trade 10 int for 20 mastery.
-Trade 10 int for 20 spirit.

Default to Brilliant Queen's Garnet everywhere. (Practical Edit: I know that's not going to be feasible for EVERYONE, but I wanted to be technically correct)

When applicable Yellow Sockets:
Artful Ember Topaz or Reckless Ember Topaz stat weighting and adjust accordingly.

When applicable Blue Sockets:
Purified Demonseye

Meta:
Ember Shadowspirit Diamond or Burning Shadowspirit Diamond (! Now affects heals !)

Enchanting
Weapon - Enchant Weapon - Heartsong or Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent I lean towards Heartsong because the proc is always useful.
Shield - Enchant Off-Hand - Superior Intellect
Head - Arcanum of Hyjal
Shoulders -Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone
Chest - Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats
Back - Enchant Cloak - Greater Intellect
Wrist - Formula: Enchant Bracer - Mighty Intellect
Gloves - Enchant Gloves - Greater Mastery
Belt - Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
Pants - Powerful Ghostly Spellthread
Boots - Enchant Boots - Lavawalker

If you don't have any other source of runspeed, do your raid leader a favor and get Lavawalker, or if you're poor, get Earthwalker.

Reforging
See the section on stat weighting. Juggle things around as necessary.

MISCELLANEOUS
Relevant Buffs/Raid Buffs
5% Str, Int, Stam, 97 Resist All - Blessing of Kings or Mark of the Wild
326 mp5 - Blessing of Might or Mana Spring Totem or Fel Intelligence
5% Haste - Moonkin Form, Wrath of Air totem, Shadowform
5401 Mana - Arcane Brilliance or Fel Intelligence
Replenishment (1% max mana/10 seconds, or 0.5% max mana per 5) - Ret Paladins, Resto Druids, and other sources I can't remember.
6% Spell Power - Arcane Brilliance or Flametongue Totem
10% Spell Power - Demonic Pact or Totemic Wrath

Not sure how this stacks.
Dark Intent? 3% Haste longterm, 3% proc.

Consumables:
(Work in Progress)
Food
Seafood Magnifique Feast or Delicious Sagefish Tail/Severed Sagefish Head

Flask
Flask of the Draconic Mind or Flask of Flowing Water

Potions
Mythical Mana Potion or Potion of Concentration (Live dangerously by macroing this to Divine Plea)

Addons:

I actually made a guide concerning healing addons, lets see if the mods want to be nice and sticky it: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1219753280

Our Shadow Priest has an absolutely gorgeous UI, many people have found it delicious and I would like to share with you what it looks like. If anything, he does an excellent job detailing how to use, modify and customize these addons:http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL761D808689FB3840
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Healing Forum MVP

Update Log:

12.7.2011 - Updated Mastery/Haste section, fixed gem list.
12.21.2011 - Added Haste priority list.
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Healing Forum MVP

Reserved
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Healing Forum MVP

Sorry, thought it was done.

Thanks Practical, just what I was looking for!

:)

Thanks so much <3
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Looks like a great guide, I really like the formatting. It would clearly be better if it were about Ret though! <3 ;)
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If you have PVP related questions I will do my best to answer them
My PVP Blog: Battlemasters.org

12/03/2011 08:04 PMPosted by Derindel

i don't know if we really required a whole new guide, 5 minutes of research would tell somone that we don't stack haste anymore, but overall i can't see anything wrong so i'll request sticky.

Some people don't like looking at information on third party sites. So I decided to make a more updated, current version of the one we have currently. Fixed the error, good catch!

Looks like a great guide, I really like the formatting. It would clearly be better if it were about Ret though! <3 ;)

I'll do anything for a Sunwalker!

12/03/2011 08:25 PMPosted by Kurae

This is awesome. Thanks Practical!

12/03/2011 08:30 PMPosted by Formynder

Thanks for writing this. Requesting a sticky :)

Thank you!
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Healing Forum MVP

12/04/2011 03:38 AMPosted by Theiea

So...no more haste stacking then? o_O We've only done a few bosses in DS10 so far (so I dont have any gear) and my FL gear has me at nearly 2000 haste. Going to feel weird not stacking mastery anymore. :P

That depends on your playstyle. Every healer knows that Haste is a straight HPS increase, but in there's one thing that has always been true: Haste scales inversely, meaning the higher haste you have, the most casts you'll cast = more mana you'll waste.

That, and this tier our second Haste threshold (5th tick) without Divine Favor is so high that it's not worth gearing towards. Your best bet is to go with the 777 Haste threshold. That not only provides you with a 5th tick of Holy Radiance under the effects of JoTP/DF/5% Haste buff/assumed 3/3 Speed of Light, but it also makes your HL/DL under a 2 second cast time.

People will no doubt still go haste. If we had another tier this expansion, we would no doubt still be stacking haste - but that's not the case (BOOM. A RHYME.) That said, while the stat weightings are still relatively the same, the most logical thing to do is to go with mastery or even crit.

(This is all within my opinion and should be understood that if you find Haste to be a better playstyle, to go for it)
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