Home

Holy Paladin Healing in Battlegrounds

Posted on June 16, 2012. Filed under: Home, Paladin, PVP |

When I’m not battling it out with Internet Dragons I like to spend time in Battlegrounds with guildies or Random pickup groups.  As of a few months back, my Holy Paladin(Main) was Dual Holy Spec.  One spec for PVE and the other for PVP.  When my raid team started having problems with filling our 25 man raid roster with DPS, I decided to change my off-spec to Ret, so as to help fill those DPS spots.  This in turn put an end to my PVP spec since there was no way I was gonna re-spec my talents every time I wanted to do a Battleground.

This gave me the idea of leveling a new Paladin specifically for PVP.  Up to 85 I leveled as Ret Spec so that I could better learn that spec for my Main.  Now that my PVP Paladin is 85 her main spec now is Holy.  I crafted some PVP Healing Plate Gear for her and off to the Battlegrounds I went to heal.

This gave me an idea of writing a post on healing BG’s as a Holy Paladin.  As we all know there are many ways to skin a cat so this write up will be on what has worked for me.

Stats

Intellect/Crit/Spirit/Haste/Always Reforge out of Mastery    

Intellect is always our number one stat priority.  As of 4.3 it increases our Spell Power, size of Mana Pool, and chance of Spell Critical Strike.  Since all healing gear   comes with Intel, we never have to worry about not having it.

Critical Strike(Crit Heal) Spell critical heals will only heal for 150% of their normal amount.  As far as secondary stats are concerned, this is where I place most of my emphasis into. This is because of my play style.  In Battlegrounds I find myself moving around a lot avoiding attacks or CC’s while healing at the same time so big instant heals are important to keeping my team alive.

Spirit  is the primary attribute for mana regeneration of healers.  I place this stat after Crit because the battle skirmishes(as I like to call them in here) tend to be pretty short so I don’t find myself running out of mana often.  Divine Plea macro’d to a Volcanic Potion helps to keep my mana at a decent level if need be.  Once the skirmish is over I can sit and recover mana by drinking a mana beverage.

Haste  increases your spell casting speed.  For me not much of a priority since most of the healing spells I choose to use are instant(Holy Shock, Word of Glory) or fast to begin with like Flash of Light or Divine Light(only with Infusion of Light proc).  As a matter of fact I will reforge out of Haste into Crit>Spirit, whichever might be missing. 

Resilience is an attribute that reduces all damage taken by players and their pets or minions. This is the bread and butter PVP stat.  It is found on gear that is purchased from PVP vendors.  Right now in Season 11, I’m finding 4000 Resilience to be my soft cap, making it much harder for others to damage me.  Just keep in mind that come MoP, Resilience will no longer be a stat.  PvP gear will have Defense on it, as well as a new stat, “Power (PvP).” Power increases the damage you do to other players as well as the healing you do to other players in PvP situations.

Mastery  is not important in PVP so reforge out of it into Crit>Spirit>Haste.

Talents

I went with two Holy Specs. First one being more defensive with greater healing from taking talents in Rule of Law and Tower of Radiance:

Second Holy Spec for more offensive talents like Denounce and Improved Hammer of Justice.  With this spec I’ll dish out some DPS using Exorcism:

Glyphs

Prime:

Glyph of Seal of Insight–  While Seal of Insight is active, the effect of your healing spells is increased by 5%.

Glyph of Word of Glory–  Increases the healing done by Word of Glory by 10%.

Glyph of Holy Shock–  Increases the critical effect chance of Holy Shock by 5%.

Major:

Glyph of Hammer of Justice–  Increases your Hammer of Justice range by 5 yards. 

Glyph of Turn Evil–  Reduces the casting time of your Turn Evil spell by 100%, but increases the cooldown by 8 sec.

Glyph of Holy Wrath–  Your Holy Wrath now also stuns Elementals and Dragonkin.

Glyph of Cleansing–  Reduces the mana cost of your Cleanse by 20%.  May replace the GoHW but mostly used in Arenas.

Minor:

Glyph of Insight–  Reduces the mana cost of Seal of Insight by 50%.

Glyph of Blessing of Kings–  Reduces the mana cost of Blessing of Kings by 50%.

Glyph of Blessing of Might–  Reduces the mana cost of your Blessing of Might by 50%.

Enchants and Gemming

Head:  Arcanum of Vicious Intellect.

Shoulder:  Greater Inscription of Vicious Intellect.

Cloak:  Enchant Cloak- Greater Intellect.

Chest:  Enchant Chest- Mighty Resilience.

Bracer:  Enchant Bracer- Mighty Intellect.

Gloves:  Enchant Gloves- Haste.

Waist:  Ebonsteel Belt Buckle.

Legs:  Powerful Ghostly Spellthread.

Boots:  Enchant Boots- Earthen Vitality.

Weapon:  Power Torrent or Enchant Weapon- Heartsong.

Shield: Enchant Off Hand- Superior Intellect.

Depending on your profession(s) you may have special enchants for certain pieces of gear that would be considered BiS as compared to those listed above.

Meta Gem:  Ember Shadowspirit Diamond.

Red Slot:  Brilliant Queen’s Garnet or Brilliant Inferno Ruby.  Jewelcrafters can use Brilliant Chimera’s Eye.

Yellow Slot:  Potent Lava Coral, Potent Ember Topaz, Willfull Lava Coral, and Willful Ember Topaz.  I prefer to gem with Resilience until I get around 4k resilience then start replacing with Critical Strike.

Blue Slot:  Purified Shadow Spine or Purified Demonseye.

Healing Cooldowns

 Avenging Wrath–  I like to use this at beginning of skirmish making sure I don’t fall behind in heals.  Because I know attacking players will be trying to interrupt my heals,  I proactively use an (Aura Mastery/Concentration Aura Combo) to prevent silence or interrupts, soon after I cast AW.

Divine Favor–   Used when AW is on cooldown to increase chance of bigger heals while moving around.  Also at times I will couple this with GoAK for extra big heals if were being over run and I’m being attacked from all over thanks to KillTheHealler add-on.  I macro’d the Gladiators Badge of Dominance to DF for some extra Spell Power.

Guardian of Ancient Kings–  I will use this cooldown during times of heavy damage to double the size of my heals.  As mentioned above, works great when combined with DF.

Hands

Hand of Sacrifice–  I like to throw this on the Tank or DPS flag carrier when were being attacked thus reducing damage to FC.  In addition, it will break any stun affects on me by damage transfer through HoS.

Hand of Protection–  I save this for ranged DPS or fellow healers taking physical damage.  Occasionally I’ll use this for myself if my Divine Shield is on cooldown.  Keep in mind this grants you Forbearance for one minute.

Hand of Freedom–  Basically used on self or others to remove slows, snares and roots.  Works great when combined with Divine Protection for Speed of Light when trying to get repositioned.  Definitely used a lot while healing in PVP.

Defensive Spells

Every Man for Himself–  Removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control.  This effect will share a cooldown with any Trinkets which perform the same task such as Ruthless Gladiators Medallion.  This is a Human racial talent which goes hand in hand with PVP.

Divine Protection –  I use this un-glyphed  to protect against physical and magical damage.  When used you also get a 60% speed buff from Speed of Light  talent.  Speed boost is great for when trying to get away from those attacking you.  Stun(Hammer of Justice) then run(Speed of Light).

Divine Shield–  Paladin protective bubble that protects from all damage and spells for 8 seconds.  Nice to use when being targeted and you want to get some big heals out to teammates.  Keep in mind this causes Forbearance for one minute.

Aura Mastery/Concentration Aura Combo-  Provides immunity to silence and interrupt effects.  While defending or attacking I like to use this with Avenging Wrath right off the bat.  Allows me to get some good healing in with minimal interruptions, hopefully giving DPS some time to kill off some of the opposite faction.

Crowd Control

Turn Evil–  Targeted undead or demon will be compelled to flee.  Damage will break this effect.  I like to have this glyphed making it an instant cast with a 16 second cooldown.   If the targets flee gets broken, thats where Holy Wrath comes in for the stun.

Holy Wrath–  Like mentioned above, can be used to stun Undead and Demons.  If glyphed can be used also on Dragonkin and Elementals.  Very handy for keeping the combat pets off of you while trying to heal the flag carrier or repositioning yourself.

Hammer of Justice–  Being able to stun a target for 6 seconds definitely has its place in PVP.  Defensively I use this to keep someone off of me so that I can do my job as heals.  Offensively works great on mages, druids or hunters whom might be attempting to slow the progress of the flag carrier or DPS attacking.  I like to HoJ a character then followup with an Exorcism  to put Denounce on them.

Rebuke–  Can’t say I use this a lot but it can be fun to piss off casters by interrupting their Crowd Control.  Thing is you must be in melee range and most of the time I’m moving around while healing or moving to get to a safe distance to heal from.

Main Healing Spells

Holy Shock- 2629 to 2847 healing to an ally, and grants a charge of Holy Power.  Nice instant heal that I use every time its off its 6 second cooldown.

Word of Glory-  Consumes all Holy Power to heal a friendly target for ((1928 + 2148 / 2) + 0.198 * AP) per charge of Holy Power.   Big quick 20-25k heal that Crits for around 40k.  If talented into Last Word and Rule of Law, you almost have a 100% chance of getting that 40k heal.

Flash of Light-  A quick, expensive cast heal that heals a friendly target for 6907 to 7749.  One of your main heals to get off some quick healing to injured players.  With an Infusion of Light proc it becomes an instant cast spell.

Divine Light-  A large heal that heals a friendly target for 11100 to 12366. Good for player(s) taking heavy damage.  Very large heal that I cast on most injured person or FC, only when Infusion of Light procs.

Beacon of Light-  The target becomes a Beacon of Light to all targets within a 60 yard radius.  Your Word of Glory, Holy Shock, Flash of Light, Divine Light and Light of Dawn will also heal the Beacon for 50% of the amount healed.  Holy Light will heal for 100% of the amount.  Only one target can be the Beacon of Light at a time. Lasts 5 min.  When following FC I Beacon them to take advantage of Tower of Radiance to get more Word of Glory free heals.  If in a skirmish fight with like 4 or 5 of us I’ll BoL myself so that I never really have to worry about healing myself up.

Protector of the Innocent-  Casting a targeted heal on any target, except yourself, also heals you for 2605 to 2997.  I put only two points into this talent.  I fully understand that this goes against the norm, however coupled with BoL on myself, I almost never have to directly heal myself and just focus on keeping others alive while dodging attacks.

Talents for Mists of Pandaria

Haven’t even tested any of these talents out in a PVP situation but these are the ones I’d probably go with.

The talents that increase my movement speed, stun an opponent, and reduce the cooldowns on my Hands seem like no brainers.  The healing talents that I went with were because of the healing spells they buffed like Holy Shock and Flash of Light which are two of my primary heals.  At level 90 I went with Holy Prism since the other two were an AoE and HoT heal which I feel don’t benefit our style of healing in PVP.

Just Have Fun

So like I mentioned above, Crit is my favorite stat just after Intellect because I find myself moving around while healing teammates. Its almost guaranteed that I’ll have enemy faction players on me most of the time so with more Crit comes a greater chance of a big heal from HS or WoG.  I try and use a few cooldowns upfront and/or early during fights and save a few for near the end.

However it’s not just all about the healing.  Everyone must work together as a team and the better communication there is between cooldowns and CC’s the better chance of a win.  Unfortunately you can’t win them all so I like to go into Battlegrounds with a great attitude, determination to heal my butt off and CC some casters, and if we loose then its off to the next one.  But I still have fun.

I hope this post on Holy Paladin healing in Battlegrounds was helpful and if you have any questions or feedback please leave a comment or get ahold of me on Twitter or email.  Thanks 🙂

Megacode