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PTR
10.2.7
PTR
10.2.6
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Defensive Holy Paladin PvP guide
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Post by
Overhaul
Caution to Readers:
This guide is built around giving another build other than the shockadin style healing. This guide is based around my opinions and criticisms are welcome, as it is a new guide and still a work in progress. This build skips just about, if not every, offensive talent in the holy tree. I mainly advocate this spec for rated battlegrounds or regular battlegrounds - since these are the main areas I have tested this build currently, although further testing will certainly be done in arena in the near future.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Major abilities:
Holy Shock
- This will be your #1 ability. It will often used as soon as it is off CD, mainly because it is cheap and instant cast. There are other reasons this is a core ability, these reason will be covered below.
Divine Light
- This is a very strong heal, but also very expensive. You will not see this cast normally, simply because it takes 3 seconds to cast. More will be on this below.
Flash of Light
- This is our fast, yet very expensive heal. I would avoid using it at just about any cost. The main time I find myself using it is when people are very low on HP (around 30%) or on the flag carrier that is taking very heavy damage.
Holy Light
- This is your mana-efficient heal. It is dirt cheap; you can spam it forever with the right gear, but is very slow and doesn't heal for a ton.
Hand of Freedom
- This is your ability to get out of any snags/slows that you run across. Cleanse works, but this works on abilities such as chains of Ice, that cleanse does not work on.
Cleanse
- This is an amazing ability, and you will find yourself using it often. This will hurt many forms of damage that requires dots to be of use, and also many snares/slows can be removed with this, especially when
talented
.
Holy Radiance
- A fun ability that heals for a great deal if you are in a large clump of people, but also its
talented
speed boost is amazing.
Divine Protection
- This will be used whenever entering a big skirmish or someone is sitting on you and getting away is difficult. It gets better with
glyphs
and
talents
.
These are not the only abilities that will be used. Other abilities include, but are not limited to -
Divine Shield
,
Hand of Protection
,
Hand of Sacrifice
,
Lay on Hands
,
Turn Evil
,
Holy Wrath
,
Crusader Strike
,
Avenging Wrath
,
Divine Favor
, and others I cannot name off the top of my head.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talents
I will give a rundown of all the talents you will run across and why these are taken, and are not taken, in this defensive healer build.
Protector of the Innocent
- Taken for its self healing, you will go 3/3 on this.
Judgements of the Pure
- 9% haste is nice, also you will be Judging for mana whenever your Judgment is off CD (and your target is not CCed). We give this 3/3.
Arbiter of the Light
- We don't take this because it is a dps talent, and one of the abilities it increases, Templar's Verdict, is a ret only ability they get for specing ret - so we don't even get the benefit from 1/2 of what the talent does. We give this 0/2.
Clarity of Purpose
- this is a nice talent in that it lowers our slow heals by .5 seconds. It may not sound like a lot, and it isn't, but it adds up. I give this 3/3.
Last Word
- This is good talent, since if someone is near death and you have some holy power, you have a good chance of bringing up their HP a good deal. 2/2 here.
Blazing Light
- This is a great dps talent, but that is all it brings is dps. I give this 0/2.
Denounce
- This is a really fun talent to have, and deals some decent damage in the process. I skip it since it is flat damage. 0/2 here.
Divine Favor
- This is an amazing talent. It gives you a great CD to use, it is worth 1 talent point for sure and is one of our key talent abilities. 1/1 here.
Infusion of Light
- Do i stutter when I say this is a must have talent. When Infusion of the light procs, you get a fast cast of either Divine Light or Holy light. 2/2 here.
Daybreak
- A good talent, but it is unreliable. Never count on it to save the day, as it usually won't. I still give it 2/2.
Enlightened Judgements
- Hit rating, self healing, and I get mana back from the Judgments anyways, yes please. Don't forget Judgments count as a melee move, you can used them when silenced. It is a heal, even when silenced. 2/2 here.
Beacon of Light
- This is a must have talent. You will usually run around with this on you, but putting it on someone else is not out of the question, just be sure to place it back on yourself, as your survival is important for yourself and the team. 1/1 here.
Speed of Light
-This is a very good talent to take. Haste is meh, but the 30 sec reduction on a major healing move, and the ability to move at 60% run speed is invaluable to get away from people that are sitting on you. 3/3 here.
Sacred Cleansing
- allows you to reduce some forms of damage, since some classes like Shadow priests, do a major amount of their damage in dots. It also increases the forms of snares/slows/roots that you can get off of yourself and teammates. 1/1 here - invaluable.
Conviction
- This is a great healing and dps talent. It is mainly taken though for its healing attributes. With crit, this becomes a very fun talent to have, as stacking it can become very easy and fast. Without much crit, this talent can become next to useless. 3/3 for us here.
Aura Mastery
- This is a must have talent, and i am not talking about using it to make your mount faster only. Using this with Concentration aura makes you immune to silences, this is a godly talent. Use it if a mage is sitting on you (or any class), often they will use up their counter spell on you after you had used it, allowing some free-casting after you had used it - don't count on this in upper bracket arena. 1/1 here.
Paragon of Virtue
- A few major CDs lowered for us. This is a very good talent to take. 2/2 here.
Tower of Radiance
- The fact it no longer works with Holy Light has hurt it a little, but if you place your beacon onto a target taking heavy damage (one in which you will be casting Flash of Light and Divine Light), the holy power it generates would be nice to have. I will give it 3/3.
Blessed life
- This used to be a very overpowered talent. Now it has been nerfed to the point of near worthlessness. You can pick it up if you wish, but the Holy power generation it offers is little. I have it 0/2.
Light of Dawn
- This was an amazing talent before blizzard nerfed it. Now the amount it heals is small. The holy power used by it often would be better used for Word of Glory. I give this 0/1.
Your next picks will be:
Eternal Glory
- This can be a life saver, it is random, but at times you can't put a price on it when it does go off. 2/2 here.
Divinity
- 6% added onto your heals is nice, also increases heals onto you by 6%. I have no idea if this stacks, I doubt it. Still a good talent to take. 3/3 here.
Improved Hammer of Justice
- A 20 second reduction onto your stun is very useful. As it is your only form of CC, a reduction on it will help your team control an enemy, or help you keep someone that is sitting on you; off of you.
Depending on tastes:
Crusade
- increases your holy shock heal. You won't get the proc from Crusader often, if you really want it bad though, just learn to steal people's killing blows with a Holy shock followed by a hammer. You may want this over Improved Judgements if you don't mind being closer to your enemy. 3/3 or some combination (some people will remove talents from elsewhere for it).
Improved Judgment
- This is for judging at a safe distance for mana and health. It will allow you to kite and maintain a further distance. 2/2 here.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Glyphs
Primary:
Glyph of Divine Favor
- This is a fun ability, to make it last 10 seconds longer is great. Also my spec is built around crit, so for this to give you 20% more spell crit for 20 sec is a great bonus.
Glyph of Holy Shock
- Crit onto your holy shock means more infusion of the light prots.
Glyph of Seal of Insight
- 5% more healing on all your healing spells is just nice to have.
Major:
Glyph of Divine Protection
- this is for those casters that you can't exactly kite, and no one will peel off. It is also for those occasional afflic locks that put dots on you that you don't dare cleanse, this will help you bear with them (damn those afflic lock/S priests that run together I sometimes see in BGs).
Glyph of Cleansing
- Cleanse is a major ability we use, for ourselves and for others, saving us 20% of our mana from it is a big deal in the long run.
Glyph of Turn Evil
- This is useful to get rid of Fel hounds and gouls that sit on you. Without this, you will be setting yourself up for a CC chain. If you need help with Diminishing returns from it, be sure to use holy wrath each time the mob comes back from the fear, will help you spread out its diminishing returns.
Minor:
Glyph of Insight
,
Glyph of Blessing of Might
, and
Glyph of Blessing of Kings
This is not an extensive list of your glyph choices, but are those recommended.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Final build looks like:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#scIbzrduufZhbMZ0b:VamoMkcMz
or
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#scIbzrduufZhbMZM:VamoMkcMz
Credit to HorrorsGrace.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gear, Enchants, Professions, and Gemming
Gear:
Grab the regular Holy PvP gear, your stat priorities are intellect, Crit, and Spirit. You want lots of intellect for the large amount of spell power it will give you, as well as the large mana pool. Crit will give you the
Infusion of Light
prots as well as allowing
Conviction
to stack. Spirit will allow you to last longer, as casting
Divine light
is mana consuming. You do not want to grab haste as a priority stat, it will do little for you in the play style desired with these talents. Most gear will have spirit and nothing else, some will only have crit. This makes reforging useful. Aim for 35-40% unbuffed crit - this excludes talents and glyphs. As gear improves, this will become much easier of a target. Settling for less with current gear is acceptable.
Enchants:
For Shoulder, I recommend:
Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone
.
For Pants, I recommend:
Powerful Ghostly Spellthread
.
For Boots, I recommend:
Enchant Boots - Assassin's Step
.
For Gloves, I recommend:
Enchant Gloves - Haste
For Waist, I recommend:
Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
For Chest, I recommend:
Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats
-- Also En
chant Chest - Exceptional Spirit
or
Enchant Chest - Mighty Resilience
are not bad choices.
For Helm, I cannot find a lvl 85 enchant for yet.
For Bracers, I recommend:
Enchant Bracer - Exceptional Spirit
For Back, I recommend:
Enchant Cloak - Greater Intellect
<Please look over these to see if you can find better enchants, item enhancements>
Post by
Overhaul
Professions:
For professions you can grab just about anything, but to max your character, it is best to go
Black
smithing
and
Jewelcrafting
.
Gemming:
Gem
Intellect
in every socket almost sums it up. If you have a blue or yellow you want socketed, for the set bonus, then grab for a yellow some
Crit
and for blue some
spirit
.
For metas i recommend either
This
or
This
. I perfer 10% less silence, but that is just me.
Playstyle:
The playstyle is simple. You cast
holy shock
in a fight, trying to get
Infusion of light
to proc. When you get it, you will be able to choose between
Holy Light
and
Divine Light
. 9 times out of 10 Holy Light will be your choice. Both of these casts will be very short, yet heal for a good deal.
This spec shines in that it gives you a choice and that your choice will have a fast cast time, making all the difference for a teammate taking a very large amount of damage or who just ran into your range of heals. It also allows you to take full advantage of
Conviction
.
For some other tips, you will always be kiting. You will stay out of melee range, and try to move as much as you can. This spec, with its fast cast times, allows you stay in place for the least amount of time possible. You can also judge to heal yourself as well as get mana back (You should try to Judge as soon as it is off cooldown, unless you need that CD for a heal or your targets are CCed).
A good trick for kiting is using
Hand of Freedom
and
Holy Radiance
for the
Speed of Light
run speed bonus. This will get you away from melee that are sitting on you, or just for a good escape when it looks like things are going for the worst.
There isn't really much more to this spec. Use your hands on yourself as well as teammates to assist, use your glyphed divine protection for the
40% reduction
of magic damage, and any forms of utility you bring - including your
stun
.
Fun Macros:
<Will be added at a later date>
Recommended Addons:
<Will be added at a later date>
Post by
Overhaul
<Reserved>
Post by
475128
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
pezz
Aite, time for the fun. This may be a bit long. Bear with me.
Glyphs:
This glyph
does *not* exist. I'd suggest you get rid of it in the guide. Other alternatives are
this
or
this
.
It definitely exists. I have it and I used to use it.
Post by
Synectics
I disagree with not taking Tower of Radiance. In PvP, you're far more likely to be using Flash of Light and Divine Light, and that free Holy Power will come in very handy in-between Holy Shock cooldowns.
Denounce - This is a really fun talent to have, and deals some decent damage in the process. I skip it since it is flat damage. 0/2 here.
The biggest reason to pick up Denounce is because Exorcism WILL run you OOM if you don't have it -- not because of the damage necessarily. While it's probably not a huge must-have in BGs, it's certainly necessary in Arena play where you will be needed for that extra burst of damage against a marked target. But for a "Defensive Holy Paladin," I agree to skip it.
Also, the term is "proc," not "prot." Lol. Everytime you mention a talent "prots" I lol'd. :D
Aite, time for the fun. This may be a bit long. Bear with me.
Glyphs:
This glyph
does *not* exist. I'd suggest you get rid of it in the guide. Other alternatives are
this
or
this
.
Eh wot? My current Holy build would beg to differ, sir.
I personally don't pick
this
up simply because I like having Wings and Divine Favor on the same CD. I guess 20 second CD reduction on Divine Protection could be useful, but I find myself just healing myself when I get hit. Sometimes I hit DP. Sometimes I don't.
Eh wot? This guide is called "
Defensive
blah blah." Lower cooldown on a very useful 20% damage reduction (or 40% magic damage reduction with the glyph that DOES exist) is certainly useful. You not being able to manage your cooldowns properly is a whole different situation. :P
You basically said exactly what I do, however it works a lot faster than what you said. It's something where I'd suggest doing what you say until you get really really really fast. Once that happens, post something on here, and I'll go into a little more complex detail.
You're the one who says they forget to use Divine Protection and use both wings and Divine Favor at the same time. :3
And while Haste does allow for faster heals, which are definitely good, I also agree that Crit is completely viable for gemming. With health pools as big as they are, extra healing will help to top off a player being focus-fired. Topping people off with less total healing spells means less mana spent. But this is a playstyle decision, and I don't believe going one way or the other is "right" or "wrong."
Post by
Overhaul
I disagree with not taking Tower of Radiance. In PvP, you're far more likely to be using Flash of Light and Divine Light, and that free Holy Power will come in very handy in-between Holy Shock cooldowns.
I do see where you are coming with this, I always have kept beacon on myself and had the idea that if i needed to cast a flash of light or divine light on myself - then chances are something is sitting on me and casting those heals is asking for a spell lock. I usually then do the hand of freedom - holy radiance to get away if it is a melee or LoS if it is a caster. If it isn't possible, then a Blessing of protection if it is melee or divine shield or pop aura mastery if it is a caster.
If I could break my habit of having beacon on myself only, then I would agree. I am just not sure what talents you had in mind for me to remove for this talent. Also to cast beacon on a target off of yourself can add a few global cds for you, as well as add more to the rush of things. One global to put it on the targeted person, another to put it back on yourself.
Also, the term is "proc," not "prot." Lol. Everytime you mention a talent "prots" I lol'd. :D
Thx for pointing that out, i will get to fixing that right away.
Post by
Synectics
I just think of your build revolving around Infusion of Light, and being able to toss such a fast Divine Light on yourself with bacon up. Situational, sure, but it's what I think of. I also heal in PvE far more than PvP, so that's probably why I think of it. XD
Also, it's probably more viable with Protector of the Innocent and Judgement heals to actually keep the bacon on someone else in PvP than it used to be, depending on the situation. In Rated BGs, you're probably going to run into groups that are smart enough to focus on you, the healer -- especially because it will be rare for two healers to be in the same area, I imagine. But when time allows, and if the opposing team clearly marks out someone else to nuke, it could be useful to toss bacon to them.
But, like you said, it's a few GCD's that you might not available to spare. This is why I love the new talent builds -- open discussion instead of just, "UR WRONG SCURB L2P." :D
Post by
Overhaul
But, like you said, it's a few GCD's that you might not available to spare. This is why I love the new talent builds -- open discussion instead of just, "UR WRONG SCURB L2P." :D
My train of thought is that if I am going to use a divine light or Flash of light on someone, it is an emergency (since if it wasn't i would be using holy light for its mana effiecency), and to cast a beacon of light on someone before casting these is risky. Often times when I do use these two big heals, the person i am trying to save is one global from death.
Post by
475128
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
732471
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Overhaul
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#scIbzrduufZhbMZ0b:macfkocMz
is my more defensive spec I use for 3s/5s and pre made BGs it sacrifices dmg capability for more hpower generation on target being focused (in pre mades and 3s/5s dmg is often significant enough to require divine light/flash of light) beacon who you are directly healing it allows for decent hpower generation and every heal you throw is backed up by a 3-4k proc from protector of the innocent
I will say i like this spec and I will have to agree with you on the points you have made. PoJ was mainly taken for the run speed bonus, but as I have been looking at the enchants, a run speed bonus enchanted on your boots can fair just as well.
The only thing I should test is if the Glyph of Word of Glory>Glyph of Seal of Insight. 10% WoG>5% healing overall really depends on the amount of HP generated by beaconing people. I can't test it until after my christmas break, when I am back in school and have access to a decent internet connection that will allow me onto my account. If anyone can add insight into this, i would appreciate it.
Thanks for the feed back so far guys.
Edit: Also I will get to changing the guide for this spec later tonight, as i am busy at the time being.
Post by
475128
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Overhaul
This spec idea is actually an interesting one.
I tried this (
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#scIbzrduubkhbMZc:mVcfkocMz
) build yesterday, and I found that it was actually not bad. At first, I was thinking that the loss of Tower of Radiance was going to cut my HP generation down to nothing. It didn't. I'm finding myself being able to keep myself/others alive just as well. (The only thing I was getting from ToR was 1-2 HP when I was getting SERIOUSLY burned.)
I have had similar experiences with my old build when i used it, most of the holy power had come from holy shock, since i always would use it on CD. When i get to testing the build with Tower of Radiance, I look forward to seeing how much of a difference it will make for me. I have a bad habit of just keeping Beacon on myself so I may not be able to test it out myself without being biased.
I went 3/3 Crusader because I think that 30% Holy Shock + some other odds and ends in that talent > 20 yards on Judgement and 50% on Blessed Life. (1/2 in Blessed Life is yielding me almost the same uptime.) The 20 yards on judgement could be arguable in an arena setting to pop someone out of drinking from a distance, but the only arena I do is 2v2, and my buddy is VERY good at getting the drinkers.
I don't think the extra 20 yards is there for drinkers or anything similar to that. Rather it is to basicly rule out melee as a threat outside of a DK's deathgrip. 20 yards is great to stay away from an enemy, but being an extra 20 yards, for a total of 40 yards out there, is really handy for staying away from melee.
I do like the 30% onto HS though, and if you are good at sneaking in a KB onto an enemy, the 300% Holy Light buff can be game breaking.
I think that Glyph of Seal of Insight > Glyph of Holy Shock, but I'm also the guy that stacks haste, so I don't see the value in 5% HS crit. I'd rather pump out all the healing I can, rather than relying on RNG to sometimes give me a 150% heal and some other bonuses.
As a haste stacker, I would have to agree that Glyph of Seal of Insight would net you more than the HS glyph probably would. It is more a matter of style than anything. If you are a crit stacker though, the crit from the glyph can be amazing.
Post by
475128
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Overhaul
I noticed that in
this thread
that you said:
3/3 divinity and 2/2 improved hammer are for when i head to lvl 85. I plan to BG lvl in cata and see them as useful. Pursuit of Justice was what i had been planning on getting, but now that it shares a 8 sec CD with Blessed life, it isn't worth it to me anymore.
This was applying to not taking Pursuit of Justice in a talent build listed there. I was wondering if you would be kind enough to provide a link from a blue/EJ/other reputable source that states that PoJ shares a cooldown with Blessed Life. I wasn't actually aware of this, and I've been doing my homework on keeping up with hotfixes and chances (other than the Divine Protection glyph *COUGH*)
TY in advance
http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_4.0.3a
It was right under the patch notes, you can find this in any of the patch notes for 4.0.3a. Look under Paladin - Retribution - Pursuit of Justice.
Post by
475128
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
538387
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Overhaul
Interesting read, levelling my paladin to heal in pvp and got a few pointers in there.
A few typos:
Hand of freedom links to holy light in your spells description
Holy radiance links to Sacred Cleansing
Also the tooltip for Clarity purpose lists a lowering of the cast time by 1s but you mention 0.5s. Has something changed?
You could add Flash of Light in the spells description. You might not use it much but you talk about it in the rest of the text.
Thx for the efforts
Thank you, i fixed the typos.
Clarity of purpose proper times are 0.15, 0.35, and 0.5 second reduction - wowhead's tool tips seem to be off.
Added FoL to spell description.
Thank you for looking over it, and I hope it was of help =)
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