Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Holy Paladin Raiding Spec 3.1+

This post is for raiding paladins, my experience in arenas in season 6 is too light for me to post about a spec here, the changes for holy paladins were massive and I still have to adjust for them.
As for raiding, I'm more confident in my point, and wanted to share my views when I read Matticus post on his blog: Speccing your holy paladin.

As a first reading, for those that are not very familiar with paladin, especially holy paladin talents (if you're dual specing into holy that's for you ;p), I advise you to read Ferraro guide about Holy Talents on her blog, and Celton guide on HolyPaladin.net.

Matticus is a raider, so I give credit to his views, he obviously has tested them in raiding and as backup to his claims. Now I don't really agree with all of his views.
Matticus sepc is here : 53/0/18
My spec is here : 51/5/15

Before analyzing the differences, I'll comment what I changed from 3.1 to 3.1.1. I ditched 2 points in Pursuit of Justice (15% movement speed) and Sanctity of Battle (3% crit) for 5 points in the new prot talent Divinity (5% healing). And changed my glyph of Seal of Wisdom (5% mana reduction) to Seal of Light (5% more healing). And that's all, even though I'm still wondering about trying to find a space for the new Glyph of Holy Shock.
So global changes for me are slower movement (changed my boots enchant to Tuskar Vitality for that), slightly lower crit (ok from 50% raid buffed to 47%), slightly lower mana efficiency (do you get oom ?) but 10% more global healing.

Now about our different choices. Matticus chose to ignore Divinity, keep Sanctity of Battle and invest into Improved concentration aura. If Divinity against Sanctity can be seen as a relatively fair tradeoff, seeing the amount of damage in Ulduar and the level of crit we already achieve, I prefer the 5+5(Seal of Light glygh)% increase of my heals.
He also exchanges 1 pt in Enlightened Judgements for Aura Mastery. As he's saying I also see Aura Mastery as mostly PvP oriented now, and I think it's too situational in PvE to be worth the point. Beside, Enlightened Judgements not only give us reach, it also gives us % to hit, so that our Judgements don't miss and we can keep up Judegements of the Pure more easily.
Now 2 points in Improved Concentration Aura ... I think I'd prefer the Pursuit of Justice speed buff. That allows you to keep the hit/crit enchant on your boots, as movement is an absolute necessity in Ulduar, the faster you get out of the aoe the more chances you have to: 1. be alive, 2. resume healing.

As you can see, even if we have a few different views, we agree on most of the invested points, and glyphs. I'm also a big fan of mana return via Lay on Hands, add that to my jeweller trinket and I get nearly 2 free mana pots by boss fights.
I'd be happy to have your views on raiding spec, fell free to comment.
Happy raiding to you all.

editor note:
This post has since been expanded due to interesting comments, you can see the additional post there: Is Divinity good for you ?

5 comments:

  1. I think the crit is better than the 3% extra healing because of the mana return. I broke it down in this post:

    http://www.holypaladin.net/index.php/patch-31-pve-holy-paladin-talents

    Besides that, your recommendations look a lot better to me than the ones on World of Matticus. Good post!

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  2. Hiya and thank you for posting a comment.

    I read your guide, which is very complete and interesting, I'll link it in the post.

    About Sanctity of Battle or 3 pts in Divinity, I think it probably depends on your character and stats.
    I feel like I have enough crit (around 50% raid buffed) and that more raw healing power is what I need. But I highly favored int & crit in my gear compared to spell power. So for me it's like balancing out that choice.
    For those that have more spell power (I'm just over 2000, which is not much for a holy paladin) a crit bonus can be better. I guess I could define my spec as 51/2/15+3 and the 3 points can go into +crit or +heal according to what is best for you.
    From a raw points point of view, I give you that 3% crit is worth more item points than 3% bonus heal up to now.

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  3. I too disagreed with the Matticus post about holy specs (although it was written by a guest blogger, not Matt)I wrote up my own spec suggestions on my blog, check it out and leave some comments.

    http://gesundlight.blogspot.com/2009/05/31-holy-healing-specs.html

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  4. Hey Dreaming, thanks for your comments! I really enjoy reading you and Celton. I think we agree more than we disagree, but would like to touch on a few points you made.

    I was thinking that the Infusion of Light nerf was bigger than it was, as you are entirely correct about the mana restoration, I overlooked that. I personally kept IOL, but in an ideal raid, I wouldn't have to be as concerned with raid heals, which would mean that it would lose some functionality.

    Where I disagree is about Judgements of the Pure. If you are looking for a few points to shift around, I think that would be the talent to tweak. Unbuffed my haste is 577~17%. With trinket procs, Wrath of Air totems, Swift Retribution, and Heroism, taking one or two points out of JotP does not seem to effect me too adversely.

    Also your point on Divinity vs. Sanctity is well made. I think I will comment on that post as well with some thoughts.

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  5. The haste soft cap with full Judgements of the Pure is around 625 haste rating (18% haste) fully 25-Man raid buffed. So you're not yet soft caped to remove some points from there. That can come with ulduar though, haste is more common than crit on healadin stuff in there.

    My real concern is ... where would you put that point you're removing from Judgements of the Pure ? Aura Mastery is a PvP talent, and improved concentration aura seems to be one for me too.

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