Trial of the Grand Crusader (ToC Hard)
Guides & Tips collection
My guilds are starting ToC 10 in hard mode, so I tried to compile a list of guides and tips from the web. I'll try to add my own inputs once I've done some progress in there, but for now here are the date I'm using to prepare my raids.
First I'll start with the collection of guides from BossKillers:
Northrend Beasts
Lord Jaraxus
Faction Champions
Twin Val'kyrs
Anub'arak
Then the video strategies from Tankspot that can be found on their forum. They are not only videos but complete guides on their own.
And now several blogs I've collected information from and found informative.
Rhidach Heroic ToC guide, this is a complete guide full of info for all the encounters, 10-Man guide but most of it can be applied to 25-Man directly.
MMO-Champion Heroic ToC forum thread, lots of infos though you could have to dig in
Nymarie's Healing Guide to ToC, this is a 10-Man Disc Priest healing guide, not specifically hard mode oriented there are lots of tips that can be used
Joanadark post on Maintankadin, this post explains how you could improve your control on the aggro from the Faction Champions, where survival is key
Stoneybaby post on Big Hit Box, a guide about positioning during the Icehowl fight, or how not to be smashed against a wall
To end this post, please have a look at Morrighan's How to wipe in Trial of the Grand Crusader Guide, it's just plain fun.
A bunch of thanks to all those that took time to produce these guides and tip collections.
If you have or if you know any other guide for ToC hard, please leave a comment.
Showing posts with label guide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guide. Show all posts
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Rhidach's Heroic ToC guide
Not mine, I don't have enough gear to seriously try this one, but a complete and very detailed guide. It is specially tailored for protection paladins but full of tips readily usable as a holy paladin. just go read Rhidach's blog post on How to defeat heroic 10man Trial of the Crusader.
I seriously point you to this one, there are so many tips for a paladin that I didn't think of (not playing prot enough these days) I'm ashamed of my gameplay :P
Thanks a bunch Rhidach :)
Update note 20th November: I've compiled a more complete list, including Rhidach's guide, you can find it on Trial of the Grand Crusader (ToC Hard), Guides & Tips Collection
I seriously point you to this one, there are so many tips for a paladin that I didn't think of (not playing prot enough these days) I'm ashamed of my gameplay :P
Thanks a bunch Rhidach :)
Update note 20th November: I've compiled a more complete list, including Rhidach's guide, you can find it on Trial of the Grand Crusader (ToC Hard), Guides & Tips Collection
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Pre-raid gear in patch 3.2
Last article about rolling a new paladin character to 80. This article will target gearing your paladin from fresh 80 to Ulduar raid level (at least enough to start Ulduar without shame). As I'm a healer this will obviously be more healing biased but most can apply to any paladin spec.
Wrath of the Lich King Patch 3.2 changed a lot of things for everyone, and even more for Holy Paladin. The two most impacting changes are:
Holy Paladin Changes in 3.2
I've already discussed the changes to Holy in patch 3.2 in this post. If you've played a Holy Paladin in WotLK before patch 3.2, you should read it, and perhaps even this post on Elitist Jerks. If you're new to paladin healing or have not played a paladin healer since BC or before, then most of what you need to know is:
Badges in 3.2
The huge change is that all raids and heroic 5-Man instances drop Emblem of Conquest (Ulduar 25-Man badges before 3.2). As you can guess, that allows you to gear in nearly full 213 and 226 gear just by doing heroics.
A lot of people, me into them, think that it is not a good thing, as a way too easy Naxramass wasn't good. This does not push people to do good to get their gear. And if you want to do high level raids (read end of extension arc raids like AQ40, Naxramass 1, Black Temple, Sunwell) gear won't be the only thing you need, and in fact it is the easiest to obtain thing. Skill on the other side needs hours of raiding and training. But I won't talk about that here, it is not the point.
I'm not going to give you the list of items you need. As I strongly incite you to raid at the same time you'll be gearing through heroics. Start with Nax10, proceed until you reach Ulduar, you'll be able to gear up from there. you can use the badges to complete what you'll get during your raids, and all your raids will give you badges too (Nax25 is the fastest source of badges if you can find a good group).
Here are a few pointers about loot lists for patch 3.2: on WoW.com, lots of different posts on The Holy Paladin.net.
Remember also that you can get 2 Emblems of Triumph (for your Tier 9 armor) per day with the daily heroic quest. And you can run the new Trial of the Champion instance in both normal and heroic mode, even normal mode will reward you with very nice items like this "you must have" trinket: Tears of the Vanquished.
Time to gear-up !
My earlier post about pre-raid gear is still useful, you can find it here.
Now how can you get as soon as possible to the gear level to pleasantly run heroic and "easy Nax"?
I'm not going to advise reputation gear, as it'll probably take you time to get these reputation high enough to get anything useful (read epic gear), reputation are useful but focus on the once you want at revered level for your head enchant (Kirin Tor for Holy, Knights of the Ebon Blade for Retribution, Argent Crusade for Protection).
I'll advise you to PvP during you last levels (78+), get the lvl 78 pvp gear and play as holy or ret as you like, your goal will be to get xp and honor points. At lvl 80 you should be able to do buy Epic arena armor and Wintergrasp gear. For that:
From there progress with badge gear, what you can get on raids, and what you'll get on the Trial of the Champion normal & heroic (you'll want that mace from the heroic version).
You can also run the dailies from the Argent Tournament, there is ilevel 200 (Nax10) epic gear to get and a lot of pets & mounts of you like them (I'm not the most patient type and never got anything from them).
Final Words
I hope you'll enjoy playing at a Paladin, especially if you joined the rank of the healers in this game :)
Your first days as a Holy Paladin won't be easy as we miss on the mobility part, you can't heal and move nicely. Try to play often with a tank you know, and that will know when to move and when to give you 10s to heal & mana regen, that will really make things easier for you, and that is really the best advice I can give you (especially for heroic timed CoT 4 or heroic Utgarde Pinnacle).
edit:
A first version of this guide can be found here, there are pointers to other good Holy paladin gearing guides.
Wrath of the Lich King Patch 3.2 changed a lot of things for everyone, and even more for Holy Paladin. The two most impacting changes are:
- changes (read mana regen nerfs, BoL buff) to the Holy Tree;
- changes to the badge system in heroic and raid instances.
Holy Paladin Changes in 3.2
I've already discussed the changes to Holy in patch 3.2 in this post. If you've played a Holy Paladin in WotLK before patch 3.2, you should read it, and perhaps even this post on Elitist Jerks. If you're new to paladin healing or have not played a paladin healer since BC or before, then most of what you need to know is:
- your mana is not "infinite" anymore by specing for crit rating and intellect;
- you'll have to use Beacon of Light to be competitive, it is now the main tool of your healing skills and no sane Holy paladin will let it drop down.
Badges in 3.2
The huge change is that all raids and heroic 5-Man instances drop Emblem of Conquest (Ulduar 25-Man badges before 3.2). As you can guess, that allows you to gear in nearly full 213 and 226 gear just by doing heroics.
A lot of people, me into them, think that it is not a good thing, as a way too easy Naxramass wasn't good. This does not push people to do good to get their gear. And if you want to do high level raids (read end of extension arc raids like AQ40, Naxramass 1, Black Temple, Sunwell) gear won't be the only thing you need, and in fact it is the easiest to obtain thing. Skill on the other side needs hours of raiding and training. But I won't talk about that here, it is not the point.
I'm not going to give you the list of items you need. As I strongly incite you to raid at the same time you'll be gearing through heroics. Start with Nax10, proceed until you reach Ulduar, you'll be able to gear up from there. you can use the badges to complete what you'll get during your raids, and all your raids will give you badges too (Nax25 is the fastest source of badges if you can find a good group).
Here are a few pointers about loot lists for patch 3.2: on WoW.com, lots of different posts on The Holy Paladin.net.
Remember also that you can get 2 Emblems of Triumph (for your Tier 9 armor) per day with the daily heroic quest. And you can run the new Trial of the Champion instance in both normal and heroic mode, even normal mode will reward you with very nice items like this "you must have" trinket: Tears of the Vanquished.
Time to gear-up !
My earlier post about pre-raid gear is still useful, you can find it here.
Now how can you get as soon as possible to the gear level to pleasantly run heroic and "easy Nax"?
I'm not going to advise reputation gear, as it'll probably take you time to get these reputation high enough to get anything useful (read epic gear), reputation are useful but focus on the once you want at revered level for your head enchant (Kirin Tor for Holy, Knights of the Ebon Blade for Retribution, Argent Crusade for Protection).
I'll advise you to PvP during you last levels (78+), get the lvl 78 pvp gear and play as holy or ret as you like, your goal will be to get xp and honor points. At lvl 80 you should be able to do buy Epic arena armor and Wintergrasp gear. For that:
- run Wintergrasp battle as often as you can (especially if your faction is on the attack);
- run Alterac Valley as often as you can (best reward in term of xp/honor per hour).
From there progress with badge gear, what you can get on raids, and what you'll get on the Trial of the Champion normal & heroic (you'll want that mace from the heroic version).
You can also run the dailies from the Argent Tournament, there is ilevel 200 (Nax10) epic gear to get and a lot of pets & mounts of you like them (I'm not the most patient type and never got anything from them).
Final Words
I hope you'll enjoy playing at a Paladin, especially if you joined the rank of the healers in this game :)
Your first days as a Holy Paladin won't be easy as we miss on the mobility part, you can't heal and move nicely. Try to play often with a tank you know, and that will know when to move and when to give you 10s to heal & mana regen, that will really make things easier for you, and that is really the best advice I can give you (especially for heroic timed CoT 4 or heroic Utgarde Pinnacle).
edit:
A first version of this guide can be found here, there are pointers to other good Holy paladin gearing guides.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Paladin Leveling Guide (part3, end)
Second part of a guide for those that roll or reroll a paladin. The first part of the guide, addressing levels 1 to 58 can be found here: Paladin Leveling Guide (part1), second part for lvl 58 to 68 is here: Paladin Leveling Guide (part2).
This guide is more targeted for those that already have a lvl 80 and can support their alt, but most of the tips can be applied by anyone.
Paladin Leveling Guide (part 3, your time in Northrend)
The basic advises from the first guide are still valid, I'll rewriting them here because you should always keep them in mind while leveling.
The first tip, which is common to all leveling guides you'll ever find is: maximize your damage output. Don't try to gear for survival, the game isn't that hard most of the time and you'll want to down mobs fast.
The second tip is, try to get a good leveling guide if you want to. If you're new to the game, enjoying the discovery is probably the best thing to do, and using Wowhead to search when you're stuck in a quest will be enough. If you're a bit tired of the vanilla content, or want to reach 80 much faster, then leveling guides are for you. I used Jame's Leveling Guides for my 3 last characters, from 1 to 78 (last levels are not yet in the guide but really not hard to do) both on horde and alliance side, and I strongly advise them.
Ok, now let us start with paladin stuff. You can find all the paladin skills by level on Wohead here, if I'm not direct linking a skill, go there for more info.
I've written my views on leveling as a protection or holy paladin in Paladin Leveling Guide (part2). Though a dps (retribution) spec will level you faster, if you intend to tank or heal at level 80, I advise you to get the dual spec talent (that you can buy for 1000 gold) and try instancing with this spec. Retribution will be better for solo questing, but you'll find a group easier as a tank or healer, and will get used to what you want to play later on with your paladin.
The 2 weapons that will bring you to 80
When you arrive in Northrend, your first objective should be the Axe of Frozen Death, it's a @H Axe that you will probably keep until lvl 75. It is roughly equivalent to the 2H axe dropped by Prince Malchezar at the top of the Karazhan tower, which was a beauty coveted by many arms warriors.
It can be reached completely solo by horde players, you will need a group of at least 3 with a good healer to get it on the alliance side (trust me the last quest on the alliance side is suprisingly hard).
If you follow James guide, you'll get it fairly late especially if you're alliance. I'd advise you to get it earlier and get it enchanted with a +85 attack power as you'' play with it for a few levels.
When you reach lvl 75 it will be time for you to go to Zul'Drak if you're not yet there and do the Arena of Anguish series (remember the Arena of Blood in Nagrand, it's the remake) to get your De-Raged Waraxe. Once again enchant it with a +85 attack power, you'll probably keep this axe until 80.
The arena can be done with a good group of lvl 75 characters, but you will often find people helped by level 80 characters in full epics doing it, if you can find an easy spot, take it by all means, this axe will be your best friend for a long time.
If you're searching for a Holy paladin weapon, it'll not be too hard to find decent quest ones. If you want a good one, I'd advise you to befriend the Kalu'aks that have a very nice lvl 78 blue healing mace, you can also get nice healing weapons in several instances.
As for tanking weapons, the choice is much more scarce. You'll probably have to use a one handed dps weapon (at least there are some with endurance & expertise like this one) until lvl 74. At lvl 74, get one or two friends and go get the Ragemane's Flipper (elite quest lvl 74). You'll probably keep it until lvl 80.
Where to go and what to do when you arrive ?
(zones to level in)
Not considering the notes about getting your weapons before (it all depends if you're using an heirloom weapon) here is the order I'll advise you to follow in Northrend.
I'll advise using Jame's guide in that order:
Howling Fjord : lvl 68 to 70
Start with Howling Fjord questlines, until you reach quests which are lvl 71. It should be at the end of the "pirate" part of Jame's guide. Try to do the Utgarde Keep instance before leaving the zone.
Borean Tundra : lvl 70 to 71/72
Switch to Borean Tundra by Kalu'ak tortoise boat, and do all of it and the Nexus instance.
Howling Fjord : lvl 71/72 to 73
Back to the Fjord, finish the quests, do the elite ones if you can, do the Utgarde Keep instance if you've not done it before.
Dragonblight : lvl 73 to 74/75
Dragonblight is your next zone, there are two instances in the zone, you can do them whenever you find a group for them. This zone is huge, and there are several elite quests that require a group but are nicely rewarding (follow Jame's guide).
Zul'Drak : lvl 75-76/77
Zul'Drak is a good zone to level in, you have the Drak'tharonKeep (lvl 74+) and Gundrak (75+) instances into it, and the Arena of Anguish (see before).
Grizzli Hills : lvl 76-77
If you're not yet 77 then go to Grizzli Hills and grind quests until you are.
Scholazar Bassin : lvl 77-78
Do the Nessingwary quests if you want the achievement, do the Oracles/Frenzyheart quests for the faction rewards if you're not into achievements (they start with this quest).
Storm Peaks & Icecrown : lvl 78+
These zones are full of great quests, that will provide you with items still useful at lvl 80 and are very nice story wise. You will also be able to start your Son of Hodir faction grind for your shoulder enchants (with this quest).
The real new skills until 80.
The first one is Divine Plea at level 71. That will strongly change your mana regeneration, and can make leveling as protection doable (though a little slow still). This skill gives you back 25% of your mana each minute.
The second one is Shield of Righteousness at level 75. Only usable with a shield, this is another help for protection leveling, and a huge aggro boost if you're tanking.
... and now you reached 80, good job, now what to do ?
That will be part of a next article where I will try to advise the fastest path itemization-wise, to reach up-to-date raid status as soon as possible (I went from fresh lvl 80 to a gear roughly ok for Ulduar 25 in 2 weeks on my druid with the patch 3.2 token fest).
This guide is more targeted for those that already have a lvl 80 and can support their alt, but most of the tips can be applied by anyone.
Paladin Leveling Guide (part 3, your time in Northrend)
The basic advises from the first guide are still valid, I'll rewriting them here because you should always keep them in mind while leveling.
The first tip, which is common to all leveling guides you'll ever find is: maximize your damage output. Don't try to gear for survival, the game isn't that hard most of the time and you'll want to down mobs fast.
The second tip is, try to get a good leveling guide if you want to. If you're new to the game, enjoying the discovery is probably the best thing to do, and using Wowhead to search when you're stuck in a quest will be enough. If you're a bit tired of the vanilla content, or want to reach 80 much faster, then leveling guides are for you. I used Jame's Leveling Guides for my 3 last characters, from 1 to 78 (last levels are not yet in the guide but really not hard to do) both on horde and alliance side, and I strongly advise them.
Ok, now let us start with paladin stuff. You can find all the paladin skills by level on Wohead here, if I'm not direct linking a skill, go there for more info.
I've written my views on leveling as a protection or holy paladin in Paladin Leveling Guide (part2). Though a dps (retribution) spec will level you faster, if you intend to tank or heal at level 80, I advise you to get the dual spec talent (that you can buy for 1000 gold) and try instancing with this spec. Retribution will be better for solo questing, but you'll find a group easier as a tank or healer, and will get used to what you want to play later on with your paladin.
The 2 weapons that will bring you to 80
When you arrive in Northrend, your first objective should be the Axe of Frozen Death, it's a @H Axe that you will probably keep until lvl 75. It is roughly equivalent to the 2H axe dropped by Prince Malchezar at the top of the Karazhan tower, which was a beauty coveted by many arms warriors.
It can be reached completely solo by horde players, you will need a group of at least 3 with a good healer to get it on the alliance side (trust me the last quest on the alliance side is suprisingly hard).
If you follow James guide, you'll get it fairly late especially if you're alliance. I'd advise you to get it earlier and get it enchanted with a +85 attack power as you'' play with it for a few levels.
When you reach lvl 75 it will be time for you to go to Zul'Drak if you're not yet there and do the Arena of Anguish series (remember the Arena of Blood in Nagrand, it's the remake) to get your De-Raged Waraxe. Once again enchant it with a +85 attack power, you'll probably keep this axe until 80.
The arena can be done with a good group of lvl 75 characters, but you will often find people helped by level 80 characters in full epics doing it, if you can find an easy spot, take it by all means, this axe will be your best friend for a long time.
If you're searching for a Holy paladin weapon, it'll not be too hard to find decent quest ones. If you want a good one, I'd advise you to befriend the Kalu'aks that have a very nice lvl 78 blue healing mace, you can also get nice healing weapons in several instances.
As for tanking weapons, the choice is much more scarce. You'll probably have to use a one handed dps weapon (at least there are some with endurance & expertise like this one) until lvl 74. At lvl 74, get one or two friends and go get the Ragemane's Flipper (elite quest lvl 74). You'll probably keep it until lvl 80.
Where to go and what to do when you arrive ?
(zones to level in)
Not considering the notes about getting your weapons before (it all depends if you're using an heirloom weapon) here is the order I'll advise you to follow in Northrend.
I'll advise using Jame's guide in that order:
Howling Fjord : lvl 68 to 70
Start with Howling Fjord questlines, until you reach quests which are lvl 71. It should be at the end of the "pirate" part of Jame's guide. Try to do the Utgarde Keep instance before leaving the zone.
Borean Tundra : lvl 70 to 71/72
Switch to Borean Tundra by Kalu'ak tortoise boat, and do all of it and the Nexus instance.
Howling Fjord : lvl 71/72 to 73
Back to the Fjord, finish the quests, do the elite ones if you can, do the Utgarde Keep instance if you've not done it before.
Dragonblight : lvl 73 to 74/75
Dragonblight is your next zone, there are two instances in the zone, you can do them whenever you find a group for them. This zone is huge, and there are several elite quests that require a group but are nicely rewarding (follow Jame's guide).
Zul'Drak : lvl 75-76/77
Zul'Drak is a good zone to level in, you have the Drak'tharonKeep (lvl 74+) and Gundrak (75+) instances into it, and the Arena of Anguish (see before).
Grizzli Hills : lvl 76-77
If you're not yet 77 then go to Grizzli Hills and grind quests until you are.
Scholazar Bassin : lvl 77-78
Do the Nessingwary quests if you want the achievement, do the Oracles/Frenzyheart quests for the faction rewards if you're not into achievements (they start with this quest).
Storm Peaks & Icecrown : lvl 78+
These zones are full of great quests, that will provide you with items still useful at lvl 80 and are very nice story wise. You will also be able to start your Son of Hodir faction grind for your shoulder enchants (with this quest).
The real new skills until 80.
The first one is Divine Plea at level 71. That will strongly change your mana regeneration, and can make leveling as protection doable (though a little slow still). This skill gives you back 25% of your mana each minute.
The second one is Shield of Righteousness at level 75. Only usable with a shield, this is another help for protection leveling, and a huge aggro boost if you're tanking.
... and now you reached 80, good job, now what to do ?
That will be part of a next article where I will try to advise the fastest path itemization-wise, to reach up-to-date raid status as soon as possible (I went from fresh lvl 80 to a gear roughly ok for Ulduar 25 in 2 weeks on my druid with the patch 3.2 token fest).
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Paladin Leveling Guide (part2)
Second part of a guide for those that roll or reroll a paladin. The first part of the guide, addressing levels 1 to 58 can be found here: Paladin Leveling Guide (part1).
This guide is more targeted for those that already have a lvl 80 and can support their alt, but most of the tips can be applied by anyone.
If you have a lvl 80, I can only advise you to send to your new paladin those two heirloom items:
Polished Breasplate of Valor (chest armore +10% xp)
one of these shoulder armors
Polished Spaulders of Valor (+10% xp, physical dps)
Pristine Lightforge Spaulders (+10% xp, healing shoulders)
Strengthened Stockade Pauldrons (+10%, physical dps & resilience)
As I'll advise you to continue leveling in the retribution tree as a dps paladin, I'd take the first ones but they cost emblems, and you could want to use them for your main unless you still have some old emblem of heroism. Then chose one of the second ones that can be bought in Wintergrasp for Stone Keeper's Shards.
Paladin Leveling Guide (part 2, from Outland to Northrend)
The basic advises from the first guide are still valid, I'll rewriting them here because you should always keep them in mind while leveling.
The first tip, which is common to all leveling guides you'll ever find is: maximize your damage output. Don't try to gear for survival, the game isn't that hard most of the time and you'll want to down mobs fast.
The second tip is, try to get a good leveling guide if you want to. If you're new to the game, enjoying the discovery is probably the best thing to do, and using Wowhead to search when you're stuck in a quest will be enough. If you're a bit tired of the vanilla content, or want to reach 80 much faster, then leveling guides are for you. I used Jame's Leveling Guides for my 3 last characters, from 1 to 78 (last levels are not yet in the guide but really not hard to do) both on horde and alliance side, and I strongly advise them.
Ok, now let us start with paladin stuff. You can find all the paladin skills by level on Wohead here, if I'm not direct linking a skill, go there for more info.
About protection and holy leveling
I'm strongly advocating leveling in the retribution tree. By level 60 you should have a talent tree close to this one: Retribution level 60 talent tree.
Though when arriving in Outland by lvl 58, you'll be much less lonely as you'll hit the Death Knight pack of players. I'd still advise you to level by yourself questing in Outland until lvl 60 to get as much quest item as you can, they will be major upgrades for all the slots where you still have vanilla (pre-outland) wow items. Once you feel confident, you can try tanking or healing instances in Hellfire Peninsula (Ramparts & Furnace) and then in Zangarmarsh (Slave Pens and The Underbog). Especially if you have the Heirloom chest & spaulders and even more if you have rest xp, instacing with a good group can be very effective leveling wise, and you'll easily find a group as a tank, and even more as a healer.
If you already bought the dual-specialization talent, or if you can buy it now, this is the right time to try your paladin with something else than retribution. You won't find as many players wanting to do instances before lvl 68-69 and the first Northrend ones.
First part of your Outland time, level 58-63, Hellfire Peninsula
If you want to train new skills, you'll need to go back to Azeroth, there is no class trainer in Outland. Don't jump back trough the Demon Gate, please do yourself some good and go to Shattrath once in Terrokar Forest (you can reach it going west to Zangarmarsh and then south from the Cenarion Expedition point). This trip can easily be done even at lvl 58, stay on the paths, don't venture too much and you'll be safe.
Get the flypath in Shat City once there, jump through one of the portals in the town center and teleport back to Hellfire with your stone. You can then fly to there each time you want to train.
When you first arrive in Outland, don't worry about instances (unless it's a rush for free xp) you need some Outland gear first ! Each quest reward you'll get will be a major upgrade and you'll jump in hit points especially doubling or tripling them in a few hours of questing.
Here is a list of items you can get through solo questing in Hellfire Peninsula:
healing plate chest,
healing or tanking shield,
tanking sword,
dps plate pants,
dps plate chest,
healing plate pants,
healing sword,
tanking/dps plate helm,
tanking plate pants,
free Insigna of the Alliance (to do if you don't laready have one, pvp quest)
two handed sword (best weapon unless you drop an instance one)
There are other very good blue items you can get with group quest and dungeon quests, if you can find a group for them when you have them, go for it.
Once you have your first Outland gear, and you have the first quests for the Hellfire dungeon: Weaken the Ramparts, it's time for intancing a bit. You can do Hellfire Ramparts, you'll finish this quest and get a new one on the last boss (drop). Then you'll get two new quests for Hellfire Furnace.
Both of these instances are done a lot by players arriving in Outland, and you should search for a group for them until you've finished questing in Hellfire Peninsula or reached lvl 62-63. You'll get a lot of blue items in them, several you will keep until probably level 65 or even 68 in Northrend.
Questing in Hellfire will be a bit hard at level 58, it'll get way easier with a few more levels and Outland gear. Once level 61 you should cruse through quests with haste. I'd advise you to move to Zangarmarsh once level 62 but you can stay there until you're nearly 63. Most quests will start giving less xp once you hit level 63 and mobs won't be worth much anymore.
Second part of your Outland time, level 63-65, Zangarmarsh
Once you're 63 or close by, Zangarmarsh (just west of Hellfire Peninsula) will be your leveling zone. You can up your Cenarion Expedition reputation here, for those that care about titles, it's linked to the Cenarion Guardian title.
There are a lot of quests here, most are level 60 to 64, so all the first ones will be easy if you're level 62, and you'll cruse through them as you did in Hellfire at the end.
You can find a list of all the zone quest on Wowhead, direct link here: Zangarmarsh quests.
There are two instances in Zangarmarsh: the Slaves Pens (lvl 61-63) and the Underbog (lvl 63-65). You can probably do them until you're level 66 or even 67 for the Underbog. They will also probably be the last instances you'll easily find players to do in Outland, the next one is The Aucenai Cripts in Auchindoum, Terrokar Forest, but it is a lvl 65-67 instance and most players are rushing their levels to 68 then to reach Northrend.
Remember to use the Looking for Group tool and select all the instances you want to do, as for Hellfire Peninsula, there are quests in these two instances. One can be found at the entrance of the instances, under the huge pump in the middle of Serpent's Lake, you'll have to find 4 npcs, 2 in each of the instances (look for them on Wowhead first if you don't know where they are). Two quests for the Underbog are linked to the Sporegar reputation and are very worthy, so go do some of the sporegar quests in the west of the marsh, and run an Underbog once you have them, even if you're already 66 or more, you'll like the rewards :P
Third and last part of your Outland time, level 65-68, Nagrand
I don't think Terrokar Forest is useful but for Sattrath. Once 65 I strongly advise to find a group the the Nagrand "arena", the Circle of Blood at the north of the zone. It's a group quest, you'll have to fight 5 bosses in the circle. It's hard to do without a good group, probably need a lvl 57-58 group, but it is very very often rushed by high level characters for their friends. So keep a sharp eye on your zone chat and jump in if you see anyone asking for more or offering a free run :P
These quests will give you a huge bump of xp, a nice weapon, and free potions.
Nagrand is a zone full of quests (again) mostly kill stuff quests with the return of Nesingwary (you can find his camp in the north east of the zone, near the east Zangarmarsh entrance). You'll kill beasts, ogres ...etc until you hit level 68.
Don't forget to stay in the Underbog instance Looking for Group tool, if you don't have the sporegar quests already, or if you want a bit of change from time to time. You can be teleported to the stone instance and teleport out with your stone once done. No running, no time lost. Just in case try to look for a group for the Auchenai Cripts and Mana Tombs, in case some players want to do them. They're a bit harder though.
You'll get fast levels in Nagrand and a few hours questing here will bring you to 68. And then ... it's time to move again, leave Outland and go to Northrend (through harbors in central towns such as Stormwind, Orgrimmar or Undercity).
If you're following James Leveling Guide, you'll find that I'm not really on the same levels. This is because his guides were written before the huge LK experience nerf for lvl 60-70 and before Heirlooms with xp bonuses where included into the game.
If you ever need a bit more xp, you can use his guide for Terrokar Forest (lvl 62-64) and Blade Edge Mountains (lvl 67-69).
Have fun, by these levels a retribution paladin with a good weapon is really a lot of fun to play and nearly never stops to rest ^.~
updated 11/12, changed the outland trainers section
This guide is more targeted for those that already have a lvl 80 and can support their alt, but most of the tips can be applied by anyone.
If you have a lvl 80, I can only advise you to send to your new paladin those two heirloom items:
Polished Breasplate of Valor (chest armore +10% xp)
one of these shoulder armors
Polished Spaulders of Valor (+10% xp, physical dps)
Pristine Lightforge Spaulders (+10% xp, healing shoulders)
Strengthened Stockade Pauldrons (+10%, physical dps & resilience)
As I'll advise you to continue leveling in the retribution tree as a dps paladin, I'd take the first ones but they cost emblems, and you could want to use them for your main unless you still have some old emblem of heroism. Then chose one of the second ones that can be bought in Wintergrasp for Stone Keeper's Shards.
Paladin Leveling Guide (part 2, from Outland to Northrend)
The basic advises from the first guide are still valid, I'll rewriting them here because you should always keep them in mind while leveling.
The first tip, which is common to all leveling guides you'll ever find is: maximize your damage output. Don't try to gear for survival, the game isn't that hard most of the time and you'll want to down mobs fast.
The second tip is, try to get a good leveling guide if you want to. If you're new to the game, enjoying the discovery is probably the best thing to do, and using Wowhead to search when you're stuck in a quest will be enough. If you're a bit tired of the vanilla content, or want to reach 80 much faster, then leveling guides are for you. I used Jame's Leveling Guides for my 3 last characters, from 1 to 78 (last levels are not yet in the guide but really not hard to do) both on horde and alliance side, and I strongly advise them.
Ok, now let us start with paladin stuff. You can find all the paladin skills by level on Wohead here, if I'm not direct linking a skill, go there for more info.
About protection and holy leveling
I'm strongly advocating leveling in the retribution tree. By level 60 you should have a talent tree close to this one: Retribution level 60 talent tree.
Though when arriving in Outland by lvl 58, you'll be much less lonely as you'll hit the Death Knight pack of players. I'd still advise you to level by yourself questing in Outland until lvl 60 to get as much quest item as you can, they will be major upgrades for all the slots where you still have vanilla (pre-outland) wow items. Once you feel confident, you can try tanking or healing instances in Hellfire Peninsula (Ramparts & Furnace) and then in Zangarmarsh (Slave Pens and The Underbog). Especially if you have the Heirloom chest & spaulders and even more if you have rest xp, instacing with a good group can be very effective leveling wise, and you'll easily find a group as a tank, and even more as a healer.
If you already bought the dual-specialization talent, or if you can buy it now, this is the right time to try your paladin with something else than retribution. You won't find as many players wanting to do instances before lvl 68-69 and the first Northrend ones.
First part of your Outland time, level 58-63, Hellfire Peninsula
If you want to train new skills, you'll need to go back to Azeroth, there is no class trainer in Outland. Don't jump back trough the Demon Gate, please do yourself some good and go to Shattrath once in Terrokar Forest (you can reach it going west to Zangarmarsh and then south from the Cenarion Expedition point). This trip can easily be done even at lvl 58, stay on the paths, don't venture too much and you'll be safe.
Get the flypath in Shat City once there, jump through one of the portals in the town center and teleport back to Hellfire with your stone. You can then fly to there each time you want to train.
When you first arrive in Outland, don't worry about instances (unless it's a rush for free xp) you need some Outland gear first ! Each quest reward you'll get will be a major upgrade and you'll jump in hit points especially doubling or tripling them in a few hours of questing.
Here is a list of items you can get through solo questing in Hellfire Peninsula:
healing plate chest,
healing or tanking shield,
tanking sword,
dps plate pants,
dps plate chest,
healing plate pants,
healing sword,
tanking/dps plate helm,
tanking plate pants,
free Insigna of the Alliance (to do if you don't laready have one, pvp quest)
two handed sword (best weapon unless you drop an instance one)
There are other very good blue items you can get with group quest and dungeon quests, if you can find a group for them when you have them, go for it.
Once you have your first Outland gear, and you have the first quests for the Hellfire dungeon: Weaken the Ramparts, it's time for intancing a bit. You can do Hellfire Ramparts, you'll finish this quest and get a new one on the last boss (drop). Then you'll get two new quests for Hellfire Furnace.
Both of these instances are done a lot by players arriving in Outland, and you should search for a group for them until you've finished questing in Hellfire Peninsula or reached lvl 62-63. You'll get a lot of blue items in them, several you will keep until probably level 65 or even 68 in Northrend.
Questing in Hellfire will be a bit hard at level 58, it'll get way easier with a few more levels and Outland gear. Once level 61 you should cruse through quests with haste. I'd advise you to move to Zangarmarsh once level 62 but you can stay there until you're nearly 63. Most quests will start giving less xp once you hit level 63 and mobs won't be worth much anymore.
Second part of your Outland time, level 63-65, Zangarmarsh
Once you're 63 or close by, Zangarmarsh (just west of Hellfire Peninsula) will be your leveling zone. You can up your Cenarion Expedition reputation here, for those that care about titles, it's linked to the Cenarion Guardian title.
There are a lot of quests here, most are level 60 to 64, so all the first ones will be easy if you're level 62, and you'll cruse through them as you did in Hellfire at the end.
You can find a list of all the zone quest on Wowhead, direct link here: Zangarmarsh quests.
There are two instances in Zangarmarsh: the Slaves Pens (lvl 61-63) and the Underbog (lvl 63-65). You can probably do them until you're level 66 or even 67 for the Underbog. They will also probably be the last instances you'll easily find players to do in Outland, the next one is The Aucenai Cripts in Auchindoum, Terrokar Forest, but it is a lvl 65-67 instance and most players are rushing their levels to 68 then to reach Northrend.
Remember to use the Looking for Group tool and select all the instances you want to do, as for Hellfire Peninsula, there are quests in these two instances. One can be found at the entrance of the instances, under the huge pump in the middle of Serpent's Lake, you'll have to find 4 npcs, 2 in each of the instances (look for them on Wowhead first if you don't know where they are). Two quests for the Underbog are linked to the Sporegar reputation and are very worthy, so go do some of the sporegar quests in the west of the marsh, and run an Underbog once you have them, even if you're already 66 or more, you'll like the rewards :P
Third and last part of your Outland time, level 65-68, Nagrand
I don't think Terrokar Forest is useful but for Sattrath. Once 65 I strongly advise to find a group the the Nagrand "arena", the Circle of Blood at the north of the zone. It's a group quest, you'll have to fight 5 bosses in the circle. It's hard to do without a good group, probably need a lvl 57-58 group, but it is very very often rushed by high level characters for their friends. So keep a sharp eye on your zone chat and jump in if you see anyone asking for more or offering a free run :P
These quests will give you a huge bump of xp, a nice weapon, and free potions.
Nagrand is a zone full of quests (again) mostly kill stuff quests with the return of Nesingwary (you can find his camp in the north east of the zone, near the east Zangarmarsh entrance). You'll kill beasts, ogres ...etc until you hit level 68.
Don't forget to stay in the Underbog instance Looking for Group tool, if you don't have the sporegar quests already, or if you want a bit of change from time to time. You can be teleported to the stone instance and teleport out with your stone once done. No running, no time lost. Just in case try to look for a group for the Auchenai Cripts and Mana Tombs, in case some players want to do them. They're a bit harder though.
You'll get fast levels in Nagrand and a few hours questing here will bring you to 68. And then ... it's time to move again, leave Outland and go to Northrend (through harbors in central towns such as Stormwind, Orgrimmar or Undercity).
If you're following James Leveling Guide, you'll find that I'm not really on the same levels. This is because his guides were written before the huge LK experience nerf for lvl 60-70 and before Heirlooms with xp bonuses where included into the game.
If you ever need a bit more xp, you can use his guide for Terrokar Forest (lvl 62-64) and Blade Edge Mountains (lvl 67-69).
Have fun, by these levels a retribution paladin with a good weapon is really a lot of fun to play and nearly never stops to rest ^.~
updated 11/12, changed the outland trainers section
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Rolling a paladin ? A few leveling tips.
Now is probably the best time to roll and alt. It's the end of summer with its low raid activity. Patch 3.2 sent everyone into 5-man, which is a very friendly environment for new lvl 80 characters. And once you've done a few heroics with your main, and unless you're like some of my friends with already 4+ lvl 80 and are spending your whole day running heroics with all your toons, you could be wondering what to do in WoW for the rest of your daily play-time.
So I'm going to give a few tips for those who don't know yet the paladin class and want to reroll, or just roll if it's you're first character, a paladin. Several of my tips won't apply if you're new to WoW, unless you're really good at grasping the game economy and making ingame money, you'll probably not have the gold to buy what I'm advising. But the general tips on spec and itemization should still give you good ideas to follow.
Paladin Leveling Guide (part 1, your time in Azeroth from lvl 1 to 58)
The first tip, which is common to all leveling guides you'll ever find is: maximize your damage output. Don't try to gear for survival, the game isn't that hard most of the time and you'll want to down mobs fast.
The second tip is, try to get a good leveling guide if you want to. If you're new to the game, enjoying the discovery is probably the best thing to do, and using Wowhead to search when you're stuck in a quest will be enough. If you're a bit tired of the vanilla content, or want to reach 80 much faster, then leveling guides are for you. I used Jame's Leveling Guides for my 3 last characters, from 1 to 78 (last levels are not yet in the guide but really not hard to do) both on horde and alliance side, and I strongly advise them.
Ok, now let us start with paladin stuff. You can find all the paladin skills by level on Wohead here, if I'm not direct linking a skill, go there for more info.
The first levels, 1 to 10
Your first skills until level 10 will mostly be your first damage skills. Your first seal: Seal of Righteousness. Your first judgment: Judgment of Light. Your first benediction: Blessing of Might. Keep your blessing and seal up at all times, judge each time it's up. It's up to you to chose between a 2 handed weapon or a 1 handed one, the difference is very little for now.
As for survival, you'll have your first big heal: Holy Light, and your first mini-bubble: Divine Protection. Try to not run too low on mana, always having enough for a heal, and don't hesitate to use your Divine Protection each tie you get a "link" (two or more monsters at the same time). It will greatly reduce the damage you take and most probably ensure your victory.
You will also get your first aura as soon as lvl 1: Devotion Aura. As for seals and blessings, you can only have one aura at any given time (unless you're in a group with other paladins). And as for seal and blessing, you should keep your aura up at all times.
The first paladin levels are fast and smooth, good armor, good survival tools and several passive buffing abilities ensure an easy gameplay and very little deaths, even if it's your first time playing.
The early days in Azeroth, 10 to 58
"talenting" your paladin for leveling
Now you're level 10, what is going to change ? As all wow players know, lvl 10 is the time to chose a "talent spec", a way to spend points that customize your character skills to your liking. Paladins have 3 talent trees, that I'll try to roughly summarize as Holy for healing, Protection for tanking and Retribution for damage dealing. You won't be surprised, I'm going to advise you to put your points into the Retribution tree. You'll get one point per level, don't wait put it into retribution as soon as you level-up.
I'm going to give you some talent trees for leveling from 1 to 50, you'll most probably have enough experience to chose by yourself from then. I'm not saying they're the best, they are the ones I used, with the changes done to them since I did level my paladins.
level 10 to 20: Wowhead talent tree for lvl 20 paladin
level 20 to 30: Wowhead talent tree for lvl 30 paladin
level 30 to 40: Wowhead talent tree for lvl 40 paladin
level 40 to 50: Wowhead talent tree for lvl 50 paladin
I always chose flat damage increase over critical hit chances, you can pump your critical first if you like it's mostly equivalent.
Your biggest changes of playstyle from talents will be at lvl 20 with Seal of Command, that will replace any other seal you used until then and will stay as your damage dealing one until the end. Then Judgments of the Wise at level 40-42 (3 steps talent), that will hugely reduce your downtime, from then you'll very rarely sit to drink and get some mana back. And then Crusader Strike at level 50, that will add some spice to your judage & wait routine.
the daily leveling
Not much will change up to level 40, keep up your buffs, judge, kill some monsters, use your Judgment of Justice to prevent them from fleeing if needed. New skills useful for multiple monsters encounters: Retribution aura, Consecration. New "oh shit" buttons will be added to your inventory with Lay on Hands (install full heal on a long cool down timer), and Divine Shield that is our signature move and a complete damage immunity for a short time (very usefull to flee from harm). You'll also get new seals and blessings, you can play with them and try them, but I still advise you to keep Might & Righteousness/Command for leveling.
Don't forget to get your paladin horse at lvl 20 and epic horse at lvl 40 (they're so nice at blizzard these days ;p).
And keep up a stack of the best drink you can find at the vendors at all times, that will greatly help you to refresh this mana bar that always seem to be drained until you'll get Judgments of the Wise.
the weapon that will be yours
Now as you could expect a good weapon is a very effective tool for a melee damage class. As soon as you'll get Seal of Command, you should get a good 2 handed weapon and stick to that choice (of 2 handers) for all your retribution time. Free attacks hurt much more when this is a free huge 2 handed word dealing it that a puny 1 handed one :P
If you already have a lvl 80 and can get the heirloom weapon Bloodied Arcanite Reaper, or the Repurposed Lava Dredger, this is most probably a good choice. It won't be as potent as a blue weapon when you're in a x5-x9 level range (read second part of a 10 level span). But it'll avoid you to chore to camp the auction house for good blue weapons.
If you don't have a reaper, or can't get it as you don't have a lvl 80 toon already, then please use that list: blue 2 handed weapons from lvl 1 to 58. If you can get your hand on one of these, it will probably be your best friend for 5 to 10 levels, so check up the auction house, even 10 to 20 gold isn't too much for some of them, and if you don't have the money, take-up mining and make a few dozens of gold pieces in a day of mining :P
If you're rerolling and have access to enchanting, buying blue weapons and putting a Flaming Weapon and later Crusader enchant on them is the best and most effective way to level. I've used a Burning War Axe with a crusader enchant from lvl 33 to 52 myself ... and even if it was starting to get weak after 45, the crusader enchant made for it until I was able to use a Destiny.
All in all don't be shy with your weapon, it's your best friend and best tool to level fast.
but I want to play a healer / tank ...
If it's your first character, I'd strongly advise you to wait until lvl 58 and you reach Outland to chose anything else than retribution for leveling. If it's not then dual spec at lvl 40 will be your friend. Get a protection or holy spec as your second spec and use it if you're ever asked for a group as a tank or healer. But keep your retribution spec for your solo play.
Now, once you'll reach lvl 58 and time will be to go to outland, you'll have more freedom. The main reason will be that you'll hit the Death Knights bandwagon and you'll find much more people to group & play with, I can promise you healers are in huge demand in outland and later on. But keep in mind that, if a protection spec can level-up decently once this level reached, a holy healing spec will still be a dreadful time soloing.
58 it's time to move on
Once you're 58, it'll be time to move from Azertoh to Outland through the Dark Portal that is south of the Blasted Lands. With the last patch, you can reach it by a portal in Stormwind or Orgrimmar.
And then you'll have to read part 2 of the guide, that I will hopefully not take 1 month to write.
Have fun, leveling a paladin in the retribution tree is, even if the first levels are mostly sit and hack :)
edit:
You can find the other parts of the guide here:
Paladin Leveling Guide (part2)
Paladin Leveling Guide (part3, end)
end for gearing your new paladin at lvl 80
Pre-raid gear in patch 3.2
hope you'll enjoy the whole thing ^_^
So I'm going to give a few tips for those who don't know yet the paladin class and want to reroll, or just roll if it's you're first character, a paladin. Several of my tips won't apply if you're new to WoW, unless you're really good at grasping the game economy and making ingame money, you'll probably not have the gold to buy what I'm advising. But the general tips on spec and itemization should still give you good ideas to follow.
Paladin Leveling Guide (part 1, your time in Azeroth from lvl 1 to 58)
The first tip, which is common to all leveling guides you'll ever find is: maximize your damage output. Don't try to gear for survival, the game isn't that hard most of the time and you'll want to down mobs fast.
The second tip is, try to get a good leveling guide if you want to. If you're new to the game, enjoying the discovery is probably the best thing to do, and using Wowhead to search when you're stuck in a quest will be enough. If you're a bit tired of the vanilla content, or want to reach 80 much faster, then leveling guides are for you. I used Jame's Leveling Guides for my 3 last characters, from 1 to 78 (last levels are not yet in the guide but really not hard to do) both on horde and alliance side, and I strongly advise them.
Ok, now let us start with paladin stuff. You can find all the paladin skills by level on Wohead here, if I'm not direct linking a skill, go there for more info.
The first levels, 1 to 10
Your first skills until level 10 will mostly be your first damage skills. Your first seal: Seal of Righteousness. Your first judgment: Judgment of Light. Your first benediction: Blessing of Might. Keep your blessing and seal up at all times, judge each time it's up. It's up to you to chose between a 2 handed weapon or a 1 handed one, the difference is very little for now.
As for survival, you'll have your first big heal: Holy Light, and your first mini-bubble: Divine Protection. Try to not run too low on mana, always having enough for a heal, and don't hesitate to use your Divine Protection each tie you get a "link" (two or more monsters at the same time). It will greatly reduce the damage you take and most probably ensure your victory.
You will also get your first aura as soon as lvl 1: Devotion Aura. As for seals and blessings, you can only have one aura at any given time (unless you're in a group with other paladins). And as for seal and blessing, you should keep your aura up at all times.
The first paladin levels are fast and smooth, good armor, good survival tools and several passive buffing abilities ensure an easy gameplay and very little deaths, even if it's your first time playing.
The early days in Azeroth, 10 to 58
"talenting" your paladin for leveling
Now you're level 10, what is going to change ? As all wow players know, lvl 10 is the time to chose a "talent spec", a way to spend points that customize your character skills to your liking. Paladins have 3 talent trees, that I'll try to roughly summarize as Holy for healing, Protection for tanking and Retribution for damage dealing. You won't be surprised, I'm going to advise you to put your points into the Retribution tree. You'll get one point per level, don't wait put it into retribution as soon as you level-up.
I'm going to give you some talent trees for leveling from 1 to 50, you'll most probably have enough experience to chose by yourself from then. I'm not saying they're the best, they are the ones I used, with the changes done to them since I did level my paladins.
level 10 to 20: Wowhead talent tree for lvl 20 paladin
level 20 to 30: Wowhead talent tree for lvl 30 paladin
level 30 to 40: Wowhead talent tree for lvl 40 paladin
level 40 to 50: Wowhead talent tree for lvl 50 paladin
I always chose flat damage increase over critical hit chances, you can pump your critical first if you like it's mostly equivalent.
Your biggest changes of playstyle from talents will be at lvl 20 with Seal of Command, that will replace any other seal you used until then and will stay as your damage dealing one until the end. Then Judgments of the Wise at level 40-42 (3 steps talent), that will hugely reduce your downtime, from then you'll very rarely sit to drink and get some mana back. And then Crusader Strike at level 50, that will add some spice to your judage & wait routine.
the daily leveling
Not much will change up to level 40, keep up your buffs, judge, kill some monsters, use your Judgment of Justice to prevent them from fleeing if needed. New skills useful for multiple monsters encounters: Retribution aura, Consecration. New "oh shit" buttons will be added to your inventory with Lay on Hands (install full heal on a long cool down timer), and Divine Shield that is our signature move and a complete damage immunity for a short time (very usefull to flee from harm). You'll also get new seals and blessings, you can play with them and try them, but I still advise you to keep Might & Righteousness/Command for leveling.
Don't forget to get your paladin horse at lvl 20 and epic horse at lvl 40 (they're so nice at blizzard these days ;p).
And keep up a stack of the best drink you can find at the vendors at all times, that will greatly help you to refresh this mana bar that always seem to be drained until you'll get Judgments of the Wise.
the weapon that will be yours
Now as you could expect a good weapon is a very effective tool for a melee damage class. As soon as you'll get Seal of Command, you should get a good 2 handed weapon and stick to that choice (of 2 handers) for all your retribution time. Free attacks hurt much more when this is a free huge 2 handed word dealing it that a puny 1 handed one :P
If you already have a lvl 80 and can get the heirloom weapon Bloodied Arcanite Reaper, or the Repurposed Lava Dredger, this is most probably a good choice. It won't be as potent as a blue weapon when you're in a x5-x9 level range (read second part of a 10 level span). But it'll avoid you to chore to camp the auction house for good blue weapons.
If you don't have a reaper, or can't get it as you don't have a lvl 80 toon already, then please use that list: blue 2 handed weapons from lvl 1 to 58. If you can get your hand on one of these, it will probably be your best friend for 5 to 10 levels, so check up the auction house, even 10 to 20 gold isn't too much for some of them, and if you don't have the money, take-up mining and make a few dozens of gold pieces in a day of mining :P
If you're rerolling and have access to enchanting, buying blue weapons and putting a Flaming Weapon and later Crusader enchant on them is the best and most effective way to level. I've used a Burning War Axe with a crusader enchant from lvl 33 to 52 myself ... and even if it was starting to get weak after 45, the crusader enchant made for it until I was able to use a Destiny.
All in all don't be shy with your weapon, it's your best friend and best tool to level fast.
but I want to play a healer / tank ...
If it's your first character, I'd strongly advise you to wait until lvl 58 and you reach Outland to chose anything else than retribution for leveling. If it's not then dual spec at lvl 40 will be your friend. Get a protection or holy spec as your second spec and use it if you're ever asked for a group as a tank or healer. But keep your retribution spec for your solo play.
Now, once you'll reach lvl 58 and time will be to go to outland, you'll have more freedom. The main reason will be that you'll hit the Death Knights bandwagon and you'll find much more people to group & play with, I can promise you healers are in huge demand in outland and later on. But keep in mind that, if a protection spec can level-up decently once this level reached, a holy healing spec will still be a dreadful time soloing.
58 it's time to move on
Once you're 58, it'll be time to move from Azertoh to Outland through the Dark Portal that is south of the Blasted Lands. With the last patch, you can reach it by a portal in Stormwind or Orgrimmar.
And then you'll have to read part 2 of the guide, that I will hopefully not take 1 month to write.
Have fun, leveling a paladin in the retribution tree is, even if the first levels are mostly sit and hack :)
edit:
You can find the other parts of the guide here:
Paladin Leveling Guide (part2)
Paladin Leveling Guide (part3, end)
end for gearing your new paladin at lvl 80
Pre-raid gear in patch 3.2
hope you'll enjoy the whole thing ^_^
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Holy Paladin pre-raid gear for WotLK
This isn't a super new post on the holy paladin blog community, but this a question I've been asked so I'm just using this blog to answer it. Perhaps it can be useful for someone else :)
There are several very good gearing guides that have been written by fellow paladins when Naxxramas was still new. If we're a few content patches later now, little has changed on the gearing side pre-raid, but mostly the argent tournament.
The guide I'll site mostly don't include that, so you can go there and give a look to the rewards in case some of them look cool. The Titansteel Spellblade has been added too, but is a dagger (I guess so that shadow priests can use it). The Titansteel Guardian is still the best for paladins, despite its nerf some time ago.
My best gearing guide pointer will be Banana Shoulders:
Pre-Raid Holy Gear Guide
Gemming Your Holy Paladins
(I don't completely agree with Siha as she's a spell power addict, I'm an intellect addict, so I gem for +16int gems on my yellow slots, for example. It's mostly a question of having enough mana or enough hps to keep up the tanks ^^ This is explained very well here.)
Holy Paladin Guear Enhancements
(Arcanums, all enhancement of guear from head to pants)
Now, as gear isn't all what you need, I'll advise you to read this very good (as always) article on Ferraro site Paladin Schmaladin (don't ask me how she got that name) How To: Healing Raids.
edit:
I have written an update of this post for patch 3.2 that changed so much about gearing in Wrath. You can read it here: Pre-raid gear in patch 3.2
There are several very good gearing guides that have been written by fellow paladins when Naxxramas was still new. If we're a few content patches later now, little has changed on the gearing side pre-raid, but mostly the argent tournament.
The guide I'll site mostly don't include that, so you can go there and give a look to the rewards in case some of them look cool. The Titansteel Spellblade has been added too, but is a dagger (I guess so that shadow priests can use it). The Titansteel Guardian is still the best for paladins, despite its nerf some time ago.
My best gearing guide pointer will be Banana Shoulders:
Pre-Raid Holy Gear Guide
Gemming Your Holy Paladins
(I don't completely agree with Siha as she's a spell power addict, I'm an intellect addict, so I gem for +16int gems on my yellow slots, for example. It's mostly a question of having enough mana or enough hps to keep up the tanks ^^ This is explained very well here.)
Holy Paladin Guear Enhancements
(Arcanums, all enhancement of guear from head to pants)
Now, as gear isn't all what you need, I'll advise you to read this very good (as always) article on Ferraro site Paladin Schmaladin (don't ask me how she got that name) How To: Healing Raids.
edit:
I have written an update of this post for patch 3.2 that changed so much about gearing in Wrath. You can read it here: Pre-raid gear in patch 3.2
Friday, May 22, 2009
Healing Ulduar - XT-002 Deconstructor
And the guides/tips for healing Ulduar as a Holy Paladin continue. You can find the first two ones here:
Healing Ulduar - Flame Leviathan & Razorscale
Healing Ulduar - Ignis The Furnace Master
And as a reminder, I also wrote some more general articles about healing in Ulduar before:
Ulduar paladin healing guides
Ulduar Paladin Healing Tips (update)
Today I'll talk about ...
XT-002 Deconstructor
You can find details about the boss on its Wowhead page, I won't detail strategies here and only focus on the healer role in this fight.
There are 2 small groups of trash mobs that were put back into the instance after the first two weeks (they were buggy at first). You can find them on the left and right side of the boss courtyard, take care to not pull the boss before having dealt with them (you will see the boss but not the trash mobs when you approach).
Now about XT, the first thing you should know is that he has been severely nerfed since the first weeks of live. The biggest nerf being his Tympanic Tantrum.The version on wowhead on this day is still the old one, when it was inflicting damage equal to 120% of their life to each raid member. You can easily guess that, if raiders were not healed, they will die. Combine that to the potential simultaneous Searing Lights and Gravity Bombs and you had regular deaths during the Tantrums. Now damage was reduced to 80% total life, which means that, if there is no external damage, none will die from a Tantrum. Light/Dark bombs can still be deadly, but it will be much easier to cope with the amount of damage today, this is why most raiders have found as the biggest nerf to XT. He's the one guarding the entrance to the core of Ulduar, and Blizzard wanted to be sure most guilds could go there.
Now that I've ranted a bit about the nerf of XT, and that I've pointed its biggest threat for healers, let see how the fight goes.
You will have 2 tanks, one main tank on XT, and one off-tank for the biggest adds that will not be dpsed. The stress on the off-tank will grow with time, having only one add is a joke, having 4 starts to be much more healing stress, he should keep his cooldowns for the end of the fight, to help with healing.
The main aspect of the fight is its two phases. Each 25% of his life, XT enters phase 2 when he goes inactive and exposes his heart. Phase 2 is also when adds pop. The main aspect is that this is a relatively low damage phase (compared to boss + Tantrums + light/dark bombs). You will be able to use cooldowns like Divine Plea without any risk during that phase, and you should regain a large amount of mana in 30s (Phase 2 lasts for 30s whatever happens, unless you break XT heart but I won't talk about the hard mode).
The MT will take heavy damage, be ready to toss some big heals from time to time, and don't worry too much about your mana if you're the MT healer. You'll have time to get some mana back during phases 2. As always, keep your Sacred Shield up on the main tank, keep your Judgement on XT (Light or Wisdom).
After a phase 2, take care when XT resumes damage on the MT, as you were probably helping with bombs damage or even dpsing (yes, dpsing :p) during phase 2.
If you are healing the off-tank, don't get lazy during the first or even second add phase, he will only have one or two adds and that could seem easy, phase 3 will be harder, and if you are in 25-Man, you'll even need 2 off-tanks as 2 big robots pop each add-phase.
Now, depending on the other healers of your raid, you could need to help during the tantrums (even if you know it was nerfed hard :p). Then simply put your Beacon on your healing target (MT/OT) and raid heal, the usual. If you're healign the MT pay attention though, damage spikes can happen.
Usually I keep my Beacon of Light on me during that fight, so that I don't have to heal me during tantrums, or on a Light/Dark bomb. I can keep a regular and steady healing stream on the main tank and I'm fealing much more secure on his survival that way.
Have fun, next week Kologarn and the Iron Council (that some people are calling the Assembly of Iron, how weird).
Healing Ulduar - Flame Leviathan & Razorscale
Healing Ulduar - Ignis The Furnace Master
And as a reminder, I also wrote some more general articles about healing in Ulduar before:
Ulduar paladin healing guides
Ulduar Paladin Healing Tips (update)
Today I'll talk about ...
XT-002 Deconstructor
You can find details about the boss on its Wowhead page, I won't detail strategies here and only focus on the healer role in this fight.
There are 2 small groups of trash mobs that were put back into the instance after the first two weeks (they were buggy at first). You can find them on the left and right side of the boss courtyard, take care to not pull the boss before having dealt with them (you will see the boss but not the trash mobs when you approach).
Now about XT, the first thing you should know is that he has been severely nerfed since the first weeks of live. The biggest nerf being his Tympanic Tantrum.The version on wowhead on this day is still the old one, when it was inflicting damage equal to 120% of their life to each raid member. You can easily guess that, if raiders were not healed, they will die. Combine that to the potential simultaneous Searing Lights and Gravity Bombs and you had regular deaths during the Tantrums. Now damage was reduced to 80% total life, which means that, if there is no external damage, none will die from a Tantrum. Light/Dark bombs can still be deadly, but it will be much easier to cope with the amount of damage today, this is why most raiders have found as the biggest nerf to XT. He's the one guarding the entrance to the core of Ulduar, and Blizzard wanted to be sure most guilds could go there.
Now that I've ranted a bit about the nerf of XT, and that I've pointed its biggest threat for healers, let see how the fight goes.
You will have 2 tanks, one main tank on XT, and one off-tank for the biggest adds that will not be dpsed. The stress on the off-tank will grow with time, having only one add is a joke, having 4 starts to be much more healing stress, he should keep his cooldowns for the end of the fight, to help with healing.
The main aspect of the fight is its two phases. Each 25% of his life, XT enters phase 2 when he goes inactive and exposes his heart. Phase 2 is also when adds pop. The main aspect is that this is a relatively low damage phase (compared to boss + Tantrums + light/dark bombs). You will be able to use cooldowns like Divine Plea without any risk during that phase, and you should regain a large amount of mana in 30s (Phase 2 lasts for 30s whatever happens, unless you break XT heart but I won't talk about the hard mode).
The MT will take heavy damage, be ready to toss some big heals from time to time, and don't worry too much about your mana if you're the MT healer. You'll have time to get some mana back during phases 2. As always, keep your Sacred Shield up on the main tank, keep your Judgement on XT (Light or Wisdom).
After a phase 2, take care when XT resumes damage on the MT, as you were probably helping with bombs damage or even dpsing (yes, dpsing :p) during phase 2.
If you are healing the off-tank, don't get lazy during the first or even second add phase, he will only have one or two adds and that could seem easy, phase 3 will be harder, and if you are in 25-Man, you'll even need 2 off-tanks as 2 big robots pop each add-phase.
Now, depending on the other healers of your raid, you could need to help during the tantrums (even if you know it was nerfed hard :p). Then simply put your Beacon on your healing target (MT/OT) and raid heal, the usual. If you're healign the MT pay attention though, damage spikes can happen.
Usually I keep my Beacon of Light on me during that fight, so that I don't have to heal me during tantrums, or on a Light/Dark bomb. I can keep a regular and steady healing stream on the main tank and I'm fealing much more secure on his survival that way.
Have fun, next week Kologarn and the Iron Council (that some people are calling the Assembly of Iron, how weird).
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Holy Paladin gameplay guidelines
I have wanted to write something about raid healing as a paladin for some time. It seems I'm late, several guides have been published around and I invite you to read them if you're interested into healing (esp. as a paladin obviously).
Holy Paladin FAQ - v1.0 (Pre-3.1) on Banana Shoulders
Holy Paladins as Raid Healers on HoloyPaladin.net
Two Approaches to Gearing Holy on Pallymar's Take
I advise you to read more on these sites, if you haven't already. They are full of very good information for Holy Paladins.
I'll probably try to write something on my own some time (soon ? who knows).
Holy Paladin FAQ - v1.0 (Pre-3.1) on Banana Shoulders
Holy Paladins as Raid Healers on HoloyPaladin.net
Two Approaches to Gearing Holy on Pallymar's Take
I advise you to read more on these sites, if you haven't already. They are full of very good information for Holy Paladins.
I'll probably try to write something on my own some time (soon ? who knows).
Friday, February 27, 2009
WolTK Paladin raiding guide, part 1
This guide is intended at any paladin beginning to get serious at healing in WotLK, you could be respecing or double-specing (after 3.1) to healing.
All long time healers most probably already know all that stuff, but I've been looking for all these info when I moved to healing for the first time with a pally at lvl 80, so I thought putting them here could be useful.
First thing first, most of these info can be found on this page, with the theory backing the up: The Holy Paladin Guide for WotLK, on Elitist Jerks
http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t35975-holy_paladin_guide_wotlk/
I will cover the topic in 3 sections, leaving a few things behind as they change a lot with patches and can be found on the EJ page.
Holy Paladin Gear will be covered in a later post, this one will be long enough as it is.
1. Main Stats for a Holy Paladin
I'll start with common sense, for us only two stats have any sort of use. They are intellect and stamina. Strength, Agility are obviously useless, but Spirit also doesn't do us any good, and even less with the nerf of OOC mana regen with patch 3.1.
It is often considered that spirit is a good stat for healers, and someone moving from a holy priest or a druid to a holy paladin could think spirit is good (as they are a key stat for these specs). But I will say it once and for all, Spirit is nearly completely useless for a holy paladin.
So that leaves us with only two stats, Intellect and Stamina, any other stat on a piece of gear will be wasted points, and as such, any spirit item will be less powerful for you than it's equivalent loot without spirit (it is very common that two very similar items exist, one with spirit and one with crit/haste/mp5).
Stamina is obviously only a survival stat, but don't underestimate it, as paladins are very weak at mobility and that will often force you to stay in an aoe to finish landing a big heal, when other healers could move out of the aoe while casting.
Intellect is your bread and butter stat. It will give you mana (bigger mana pool and mana regen with Divine Plea), spell crit (mana regen with Illumination), and mana regen (the formula for mana regeneration out of combat is affected by Int now, though it hardly affect us).
So to sum-up, go for Intellect and Stamina items, anything else is crap.
2. Secondary Stats for a Holy Paladin
Secondary stats for a healer are: spell power, spell crit, spell haste, mp5. They are the same as for any caster, and so expect to be on the rank with other magic dps for your items (oh yes mages and warlocks, these two swords from heroic Nax are sweet, aren't they ? We do love them too ^^)
Now what is the impact of each stat for a Holy Paladin ?
Spell power :
This is your raw power, most of our spells scale extremely well with spell power and there is no cap to it, to more you have the better is it (try to aim at around 1500 for Nax and 2000 for Ulduar as minimums)
Spell crit :
Both powering up our heals with 150% effectiveness and giving us 60% of the mana back with Illumination, spell crit is a very very good stat for a paladin, a good chunk of your spell crit should come from your intellect (40% holy crit raid buffed is a good target for Nax, 50%+ for Ulduar)
Spell haste :
Simply speaking, spell haste helps you landing more spells in the same amount of time, healing faster could make the difference between a living MT and a dead raid, so yes, it is a good stat for Holy Paladins.
Though with talents such as Judgments of the Pure and Light's Grace, we can already achieve a good chunk of speed-up by ourselves. Don't overdo it with haste, the soft cap for us is 682 haste (assuming full buffed), anything more will be mostly wasted.
Mp5 :
This is a purely enduring stat, to help you during very long fight with mana regen. Honestly speaking, with the state of WotLK raiding now, it is nearly useless, there will be no fight that drain you OOM, unless you or your raid is severely undergeared for it. Though it is less useless than spirit, so you should not necessarily avoid items with mp5, as there are sometimes few alternatives. Perhaps Ulduar will be hard enough for some fights to give more value to mp5.
So to sum-up on secondary stats:
spell crit > spell power / haste (if less than 682) > mp5
3. A Holy Paladin spells
Ok, you know your spells, I don't pretend to teach you how to heal, as if you're here you're probably not a bad healer ^^
I just want to give opinions on what I've experienced myself while raiding.
Before talking of the spells themselves, I'll address the Overhealing Debate. There is often tensions coming up in a raid between people about their "effectiveness". And most people decide of that using tools like Recount. I will say it clearly, don't give a shit about that! Not that recount isn't a good tool, probably quite effective for dpsers, but it is completely beside the point for healing.
First, it doesn't take mitigation into account (Paladin & Priest shields, for exemple).
Second, it counts only effective healing & overhealing. So it encourages you to land a heal on a raider already hotted to death, overriding the hots and pushing them into overhealing, while they would have been perfectly fine to cap up the raider.
All in all it is a very bad tool to mesure healing effectiveness in a whole. And let not add to that the difference between healers.
As a paladin, you are an endurance healer, the one who should still be up and healing the rank when the druids and priests need a mana pause because they're OOM after their first or even second inervate. And considering the triviality of raiding on WotLK right now, there is no need for endurance. So druids & priests can go all out and will stomp you into the ground with their aoe heals/regen ...etc, unless you start spamming Holy Lights, which is a bad way of healing (but if your raid gives too much credit to Recount, that's your way of retaliating).
I will say it again, you will have overhealing, and that means you were doing your job, even if your heals were snipped by some other healer. If your raid is not being happy about your healing stats, talk to your healing leader or raid leader. If they can't understand, just find a good guild, they will miss their paladin once the content is not so ridiculous anymore.
Flash of Light / Holy Light
The old use was to use Flash of Light at all times and Holy Light for emergencies/enrages. That is for two good reasons: the cost of FoL is very small and it scales extremely well with spell power for such a fast spell.
This as mostly changed because of a simple thing, mana is nearly not an issue right now. Add to that the fact that HL, through glyphing, is our only sort of AOE healing ability. You get one simple result: nearly all paladins are spamming HL nowadays, unless there is really nothing to heal.
I must say that I'm doing the same. Though I was reluctant at first, being so damn low on the raid healing charts turned me lazy and I must confess that HL spamming does push you up on them, though it's a really bad thing to do, but not worse than Holy Priests Circle of Healing spams ...
So well, as long as you don't have mana issues, and keep a good chunk to HL spam to death during bosses enrages, feel free to HL spam, if it not good use of your mana, you'll have a tremendous Overhealing, but who cares as long as you're not OOM?
Sacred Shield
This is a nice spell, scales very well with spell power, and does not prevent the generation of rage on the first proc. Very useful for some fights (Loatheb), marginaly useful on most. Just try to keep it up on your tanks, don't override other palys ones though (have assignments).
Keep an eye on the rage/mana of your tanks, if they're low, just let them eat full hits for a few seconds before shielding again, that will make them happy tanks.
Beacon of Light
That is your new best friend since 3.0. This spell alone changed the way of healing for Holy Paladins, and it is our only spell that could allow you to raid heal while also healing your tank.
It has a lot of uses, try using it on you in bgs to ensure your survivability for exemple. When this damned rogue will stun-lock you, you'll be full health even if you were focused by a ranged dpser while healing a melee of your group. Use it on your "tank buddy" when you're in the back of the 4 Horsemen room. Use it on a second trainee while healing another in the Razzuvious encounter ...
This ability is mostly only limited by the creative uses you can find it. Learn to love your Bacon :P
Judgment of Wisdom/Judgement of Light
You're being a good paladin, aren't you? You're judging every 1mn at least, aren't you? If you're in charge of maintaining a judgment on a target (Light if you have no prot/ret paladin in the raid, wisdom if you do), try to refresh it each 20s.
Judgments of the Pure give you 15% spell haste for 1mn when you judge something, don't be old school, do it!
Divine Plea / Avenging Wrath
Divine Plea is an awesome mana regen ability, don't hear me wrong, you won't ever be able to not go OOM in a serious fight of more than 5mn without it. It was so awesome it was nerfed, reducing healing by 50% for it's duration, it was 20% before patch 2.09. That is the reason for coupling it with Avenging Wrath that will limit this reduction to 20%. If worst comes to worst, use DP and spam HL instead of FoL, you'll still end with more mana than before your DP.
That's all for this part of the Holy Paladin guide for raiding, I'll cover the pre-raid gear later, though I've discussed most of the choices you have to do in sections 1 and 2 of this post.
All long time healers most probably already know all that stuff, but I've been looking for all these info when I moved to healing for the first time with a pally at lvl 80, so I thought putting them here could be useful.
First thing first, most of these info can be found on this page, with the theory backing the up: The Holy Paladin Guide for WotLK, on Elitist Jerks
http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t35975-holy_paladin_guide_wotlk/
I will cover the topic in 3 sections, leaving a few things behind as they change a lot with patches and can be found on the EJ page.
Holy Paladin Gear will be covered in a later post, this one will be long enough as it is.
1. Main Stats for a Holy Paladin
I'll start with common sense, for us only two stats have any sort of use. They are intellect and stamina. Strength, Agility are obviously useless, but Spirit also doesn't do us any good, and even less with the nerf of OOC mana regen with patch 3.1.
It is often considered that spirit is a good stat for healers, and someone moving from a holy priest or a druid to a holy paladin could think spirit is good (as they are a key stat for these specs). But I will say it once and for all, Spirit is nearly completely useless for a holy paladin.
So that leaves us with only two stats, Intellect and Stamina, any other stat on a piece of gear will be wasted points, and as such, any spirit item will be less powerful for you than it's equivalent loot without spirit (it is very common that two very similar items exist, one with spirit and one with crit/haste/mp5).
Stamina is obviously only a survival stat, but don't underestimate it, as paladins are very weak at mobility and that will often force you to stay in an aoe to finish landing a big heal, when other healers could move out of the aoe while casting.
Intellect is your bread and butter stat. It will give you mana (bigger mana pool and mana regen with Divine Plea), spell crit (mana regen with Illumination), and mana regen (the formula for mana regeneration out of combat is affected by Int now, though it hardly affect us).
So to sum-up, go for Intellect and Stamina items, anything else is crap.
2. Secondary Stats for a Holy Paladin
Secondary stats for a healer are: spell power, spell crit, spell haste, mp5. They are the same as for any caster, and so expect to be on the rank with other magic dps for your items (oh yes mages and warlocks, these two swords from heroic Nax are sweet, aren't they ? We do love them too ^^)
Now what is the impact of each stat for a Holy Paladin ?
Spell power :
This is your raw power, most of our spells scale extremely well with spell power and there is no cap to it, to more you have the better is it (try to aim at around 1500 for Nax and 2000 for Ulduar as minimums)
Spell crit :
Both powering up our heals with 150% effectiveness and giving us 60% of the mana back with Illumination, spell crit is a very very good stat for a paladin, a good chunk of your spell crit should come from your intellect (40% holy crit raid buffed is a good target for Nax, 50%+ for Ulduar)
Spell haste :
Simply speaking, spell haste helps you landing more spells in the same amount of time, healing faster could make the difference between a living MT and a dead raid, so yes, it is a good stat for Holy Paladins.
Though with talents such as Judgments of the Pure and Light's Grace, we can already achieve a good chunk of speed-up by ourselves. Don't overdo it with haste, the soft cap for us is 682 haste (assuming full buffed), anything more will be mostly wasted.
Mp5 :
This is a purely enduring stat, to help you during very long fight with mana regen. Honestly speaking, with the state of WotLK raiding now, it is nearly useless, there will be no fight that drain you OOM, unless you or your raid is severely undergeared for it. Though it is less useless than spirit, so you should not necessarily avoid items with mp5, as there are sometimes few alternatives. Perhaps Ulduar will be hard enough for some fights to give more value to mp5.
So to sum-up on secondary stats:
spell crit > spell power / haste (if less than 682) > mp5
3. A Holy Paladin spells
Ok, you know your spells, I don't pretend to teach you how to heal, as if you're here you're probably not a bad healer ^^
I just want to give opinions on what I've experienced myself while raiding.
Before talking of the spells themselves, I'll address the Overhealing Debate. There is often tensions coming up in a raid between people about their "effectiveness". And most people decide of that using tools like Recount. I will say it clearly, don't give a shit about that! Not that recount isn't a good tool, probably quite effective for dpsers, but it is completely beside the point for healing.
First, it doesn't take mitigation into account (Paladin & Priest shields, for exemple).
Second, it counts only effective healing & overhealing. So it encourages you to land a heal on a raider already hotted to death, overriding the hots and pushing them into overhealing, while they would have been perfectly fine to cap up the raider.
All in all it is a very bad tool to mesure healing effectiveness in a whole. And let not add to that the difference between healers.
As a paladin, you are an endurance healer, the one who should still be up and healing the rank when the druids and priests need a mana pause because they're OOM after their first or even second inervate. And considering the triviality of raiding on WotLK right now, there is no need for endurance. So druids & priests can go all out and will stomp you into the ground with their aoe heals/regen ...etc, unless you start spamming Holy Lights, which is a bad way of healing (but if your raid gives too much credit to Recount, that's your way of retaliating).
I will say it again, you will have overhealing, and that means you were doing your job, even if your heals were snipped by some other healer. If your raid is not being happy about your healing stats, talk to your healing leader or raid leader. If they can't understand, just find a good guild, they will miss their paladin once the content is not so ridiculous anymore.
Flash of Light / Holy Light
The old use was to use Flash of Light at all times and Holy Light for emergencies/enrages. That is for two good reasons: the cost of FoL is very small and it scales extremely well with spell power for such a fast spell.
This as mostly changed because of a simple thing, mana is nearly not an issue right now. Add to that the fact that HL, through glyphing, is our only sort of AOE healing ability. You get one simple result: nearly all paladins are spamming HL nowadays, unless there is really nothing to heal.
I must say that I'm doing the same. Though I was reluctant at first, being so damn low on the raid healing charts turned me lazy and I must confess that HL spamming does push you up on them, though it's a really bad thing to do, but not worse than Holy Priests Circle of Healing spams ...
So well, as long as you don't have mana issues, and keep a good chunk to HL spam to death during bosses enrages, feel free to HL spam, if it not good use of your mana, you'll have a tremendous Overhealing, but who cares as long as you're not OOM?
Sacred Shield
This is a nice spell, scales very well with spell power, and does not prevent the generation of rage on the first proc. Very useful for some fights (Loatheb), marginaly useful on most. Just try to keep it up on your tanks, don't override other palys ones though (have assignments).
Keep an eye on the rage/mana of your tanks, if they're low, just let them eat full hits for a few seconds before shielding again, that will make them happy tanks.
Beacon of Light
That is your new best friend since 3.0. This spell alone changed the way of healing for Holy Paladins, and it is our only spell that could allow you to raid heal while also healing your tank.
It has a lot of uses, try using it on you in bgs to ensure your survivability for exemple. When this damned rogue will stun-lock you, you'll be full health even if you were focused by a ranged dpser while healing a melee of your group. Use it on your "tank buddy" when you're in the back of the 4 Horsemen room. Use it on a second trainee while healing another in the Razzuvious encounter ...
This ability is mostly only limited by the creative uses you can find it. Learn to love your Bacon :P
Judgment of Wisdom/Judgement of Light
You're being a good paladin, aren't you? You're judging every 1mn at least, aren't you? If you're in charge of maintaining a judgment on a target (Light if you have no prot/ret paladin in the raid, wisdom if you do), try to refresh it each 20s.
Judgments of the Pure give you 15% spell haste for 1mn when you judge something, don't be old school, do it!
Divine Plea / Avenging Wrath
Divine Plea is an awesome mana regen ability, don't hear me wrong, you won't ever be able to not go OOM in a serious fight of more than 5mn without it. It was so awesome it was nerfed, reducing healing by 50% for it's duration, it was 20% before patch 2.09. That is the reason for coupling it with Avenging Wrath that will limit this reduction to 20%. If worst comes to worst, use DP and spam HL instead of FoL, you'll still end with more mana than before your DP.
That's all for this part of the Holy Paladin guide for raiding, I'll cover the pre-raid gear later, though I've discussed most of the choices you have to do in sections 1 and 2 of this post.
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