Vet Hpally guide

tence

Legend
I made this guide in the guide forum, but it was neither moved, nor really got viewed, so I'll make it here in hopes it gets moved to the correct spot. Here is my take on the paladin class. I will keep this updated to how/what I use, but feel free to lend your input as well! If you have any questions feel free to ask too

Table of Contents

1) Races
2) Talents
3) Abilities
4) stat priority
5) gear & enchants
6) addons
7 Macros & useful tips

Races

(credit for this goes to squidgy)
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Alliance
My personal pick: Human>Draenei=Dwarf

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Horde

My personal pick: Be>Tauren
  • Blood Elf (arcane torrent is too good)

Ultimately you should always choose a race that you enjoy playing.
Make sure you are comfortable with the movement and casting animations unless you want to be addicted to transformation toys and consumables. I am very guilty of this...

Talents

  • Speed of light: My personal pick for dedicated arenas or premades, exceptionally good for evading polymorphs/fear and recovering your positioning
  • Long arm of the law: outclassed by pursuit of justice for holy, do not use this.
  • Pursuit of Justice: Best overall choice, as it combines with minor speed and cloak enchant to put you at 135% passive and 150% with 3 charges of holy power.

Abilities
Defensive
  • Flash of light: Main ability and what you will be spamming most.
  • Holy shock: Heals for a reasonable amount and damages for more, has double percent chance to crit.
  • Word of Glory: Heals for a small amount, use this sparingly since the charges for pursuit of justice will be more important, has a cast time as well in WOD.
  • Cleanse: One of the biggest strengths as an hpally, as it dispells magic effects. Save this for stuns, especially on other healers.
  • Lay on hands: Your oh s&*$ button. Essentially gives you or whomever you cast it on a 2nd life. Do not forget to use this, despite the long 10 minute cooldown.
  • Divine shield: Your strongest defensive ability. Learn where and when to use this for the most effect.
  • Redemption: Don't forget you have this in arenas. Lulz may ensue.
Offensive
  • Judgment: Main ranged ability. Save this in conjunction with holy shock and reckoning to keep druids and rogues out of stealth forever.
  • Crusader Strike: Doesn't do a lot of damage, only use if a pet is on you and you need an extra charge for speed buff, otherwise, not worth the gcd.
  • Denounce: Your main offensive ability. Use this on high dps classes (like druids/wars/rogues) to help reduce incoming damage, or on an enemy healer to help ensure they go down easier.
  • Hammer of Justice: Your only cc, and arguably what sets a good paladin from a great one. use it to reduce incoming damage, to ensure a healer or kill target goes down, or even to ensure the flag gets returned. The potential is only limited by your own imagination.
  • Reckoning: Use in conjunction with judgment and holy shock to keep rogues and druids out of stealth forever, or defensively to taunt pets off of other classes.
  • Seal of command: more pew pew.
As you can see, the paladin class has a lot of abilities to utilize.

Stat Priority

This is debatable, but from my experience as a paladin you want to stack haste, intellect, and stamina. I have had success with versatility, intellect and stamina, while maintaining flash of light around 1.3s cast time.

Gear & Enchants
Set 1: more healing output, but squishier

Head: Mystical coif of elements
Neck: Eternal amulet of the redeemed with Gift of haste
Shoulder: Aged pauldrons of the five thunders with Greater inscription of the charged lodestone
Cloak: Ancient bloodmoon cloak with Gift of haste
Chest: Pristine lightforge breastplate with Major Mana
Bracer: Mindthrust bracers with Superior spellpower
Gloves: Woodworking gloves with Major healing
Belt: Keller's girdle
Legs: Pristine Lightforge Legplates with Greater Pearlescent Spellthread
Feet: Spidersilk boots with Minor speed
Ring 1: Lavishly jeweled ring with Gift of haste
Ring 2: Garrosh's Pardon with Gift of haste
Trinket 1: Inherited insignia of the horde/alliance (if not human) or Defending champion (if human)
Trinket 2: Discerning Eye of the Beast
Wep slot 1: The blessed hammer of grace with Major spellpower
Wep slot 2: Weathered observer's shield with Major intellect

Set 2: slightly less healing output, but tankier

Head: Mystical coif of elements
neck: Eternal Horizon Choker with Gift of versatility
Shoulder: Aged pauldrons of the five thunders with Greater inscription of the charged lodestone
Cloak: Ancient bloodmoon cloak with Gift of versatility
Chest: Pristine lightforge breastplate with Peerless stats
Bracer: Hovel digger bands with Major stamina
Gloves: Woodworking gloves with Glove reinforcements (substitute with magefist gloves)
Belt: Earthbound girdle of the sorcerer
Legs: Pristine Lightforge Legplates with Sapphire spellthread
Feet: Spidersilk boots with Minor speed
Ring 1: Seal of argas/Garrosh's pardon with Gift of versatility
Ring 2: Seal of argas/Gloaming band with Gift of versatility
Trinket 1: Inherited insignia of the horde/alliance (if not human) or Defending champion (if human)
Trinket 2: Arena grand master
Wep slot 1: The blessed hammer of grace with Major spellpower
Wep slot 2: Weathered observer's shield with Major intellect

set 3: Spirit/int based Set for long fights In AB/EOTS/AV

Head: Mystical coif of elements
Neck: Eternal amulet of the redeemed with Gift of haste
Shoulder: Aged pauldrons of the five thunders with Greater Inscription of the Oracle
Cloak: Tumultuous Cloak of the Elder with Gift of haste
Chest: Robe of the Moccasin with Major Mana
Bracer: Mindthrust bracers with Superior spellpower
Gloves: Magefist Gloves with Major healing
Belt: Keller's girdle
Legs: Pristine Lightforge Legplates with Greater Pearlescent Spellthread
Feet: Sandals of Sacrifice with Minor speed
Ring 1: Deep Fathom Ring with Gift of haste
Ring 2: Lorekeeper's Ring with Gift of haste
Trinket 1: Inherited insignia of the horde/alliance (if not human) or Defending champion (if human)
Trinket 2: Discerning Eye of the Beast
Wep slot 1: The blessed hammer of grace with Major spellpower
Wep slot 2: Seedcloud Buckler with Superior Spirit

Addons

I don't use many addons, as I believe too many can be more detrimental than helpful. Here are what I believe to be the absolute must.

Bg targets: gives you a bar with enemy names, and allows you to easily target and see what the enemy team has.
Nameplate cooldowns: Cooldowns on abilities above enemy nameplates. I use this in conjunction with omni cc to assist with fake casting.
Omni cc: A bar that shows when an enemy player has used an interrupt. Very useful addon for caster classes.
Say sapped: simple addon that say "sapped" automatically when you are sapped, and a message that says who sapped you.

Macros and useful tips

Macros are something I rely heavily on, so I will share some of the ones I have found most useful

Flash of light macro (swap flash of light with other offensive healing abilities
#showtooltip Flash of Light
/cast [mod:ctrl, target=player][@mouseover,exists,help,nodead][@target,exists,help,nodead][@focus,help,nodead][] Flash of Light


Holy shock
#showtooltip Holy Shock
/stopcasting
/cast [mod:ctrl, target=player][@mouseover,exists,nodead][@target,exists,nodead] [@focus,nodead][] Holy Shock


Focus hoj
#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus, exists] Hammer of Justice; hammer of justice


Clease/hoj in one keybind
#showtooltip cleanse
/stopcasting
/cast [nomod, help] cleanse
/cast [mod:ctrl, target=player] cleanse
/cast [nomod, harm] hammer of justice

Focus denounce
#showtooltip
/cast [@focus, exists, harm, nodead] Denounce; Denounce

BM/neck heal macro
#showtooltip
/use Inherited Mark of Tyranny
/use healthstone
/use Eternal Horizon Choker
/use Eternal Emberfury Talisman
/use Eternal Amulet of the Redeemed

Focus macro
/clearfocus
/focus [@mouseover,nodead,exists]; [@target,exists]

Judgment spam macro to get stealthies out
#showtooltip
/console targetNearestDistance 15.000000
/targetenemy [noharm][dead]
/console targetNearestDistance 41.000000
/cast Judgment

Macro to swap between friendly/enemy nameplates (Bugs out of combat as of Wod, will look into fixing later)
#showtooltip Divine plea
/run local a = GetCVar("nameplateShowFriends"); SetCVar("nameplateShowFriends",1-a); SetCVar("nameplateShowEnemies",a);

For tips, all I can say is work hard on your ability to be able to look at whats going on around you, while still being able to heal others.

Since you will be mainly spamming flash of light most of your time, learning to fake cast/juke is VERY important and helpful.

Learn to use the environment around you to your benefit. Hid behind terrain or inside bushes to make yourself harder to target.

Keep an eye on your mana, spamming flash of light eats through that quickly.

Using dispell/cleanse on a character in combat without that character having anything to dispell on them is a quick way of getting yourself into combat without wasting any cooldowns or resources, as it does not trigger the cooldown on dispell/cleanse.

Dispell dots/poisons on stealthies so they can restealth

In a premade situation, assign a macro to quickly dispell your other healers, I assign this to mousewheel up & down, this way you don't have as much brain lag from having to see the frame, target them, and press the button.


I will attach a video I highlighted in a recent stream I did, that I believe outlines many things I suggested (better than I could explain) while also demonstrating that holy CAN keep up with other healing classes.


The video is located here put on some tunes of your own, as it was sadly muted.
 
You can macro helpful spells to similar harmful spells, as in

/cast [harm] Denounce
/cast [help] Flash of Light

or

/cast [help] Cleanse
/cast [harm] Hammer of Justice

and particularly since you can't burst heal w/ WoG anymore

/cast [help] Holy Shock
/cast [harm] Judgment

etc.

Also, burst healing (FoL -> HS), Denounce -> Judgment, and FoL -> Cleanse, good tactics to follow casts w/ instants.
When you and another healer are both on a teammate about to die, and you're both casting, if you have shock or if you want to use LoH, you can cancel that cast and use an instant to support the other healer's casts. Otherwise, your target might die while you're both just casting
 
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Nice guide! Thanks for putting the work in :)
 
Patrol said:
You can macro helpful spells to similar harmful spells, as in

/cast [harm] Denounce
/cast [help] Flash of Light

or

/cast [help] Cleanse
/cast [harm] Hammer of Justice

and particularly since you can't burst heal w/ WoG anymore

/cast [help] Holy Shock
/cast [harm] Judgment

etc.

Also, burst healing (FoL -> HS), Denounce -> Judgment, and FoL -> Cleanse, good tactics to follow casts w/ instants.
When you and another healer are both on a teammate about to die, and you're both casting, if you have shock or if you want to use LoH, you can cancel that cast and use an instant to support the other healer's casts. Otherwise, your target might die while you're both just casting
Click to expand...

The problem with macroing harmful and helpful spells together, is that you cannot utilize things like mouseovers, which a lot of my healing playstyle uses.

I agree and utilize FOL then HS right after on occasion, but for straight up sustained heals, spamming flash of light outputs more because of the global cooldown from holy shock. Holy shock is a great ability, but most times, especially with the amount of haste I run, flash of light is usually the better option.
 
tence said:
The problem with macroing harmful and helpful spells together, is that you cannot utilize things like mouseovers, which a lot of my healing playstyle uses.

I agree and utilize FOL then HS right after on occasion, but for straight up sustained heals, spamming flash of light outputs more because of the global cooldown from holy shock. Holy shock is a great ability, but most times, especially with the amount of haste I run, flash of light is usually the better option.
Click to expand...

For sure, mouseovers make my macros risky at best. The point is any old dingbat can tell you how to gear.

Tips, tactics, strategies: these are what make better players. When you're new to a class or spec, you might be letting rogues restealth because you don't know Taunt keeps combat, or you might have no idea how to target efficiently - or you might just not know all the options. You might reposition when you should be casting, or vice versa. You might have macros without #showtooltip and clutter up your bars because you don't know how else to see the CDs, or you might not know how to write a macro so you can't try things out on your own

Things like that aren't always covered in guides and so you end up with a glorified armory and the sparknotes of a thottbot article - not a guide


p.s. I appreciate your descriptions of abilities, that's helpful
 
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Patrol said:
For sure, mouseovers make my macros risky at best. The point is any old dingbat can tell you how to gear.

Tips, tactics, strategies: these are what make better players. When you're new to a class or spec, you might be letting rogues restealth because you don't know Taunt keeps combat, or you might have no idea how to target efficiently - or you might just not know all the options. You might have macros without #showtooltip and clutter up your bars because you don't know how else to see the CDs, or you might not know how to write a macro so you can't try things out on your own

Things like that aren't always covered in guides and so you end up with a glorified armory and the sparknotes of a thottbot article - not a guide
Click to expand...

I addressed things like this IN my guide. I explained in the ability section using the taunt to get pets off others, or in conjunction with judgment and holy shock to keep stealthies out indefinitely.

I explained tips, tactics and strategies to help others improve their game play near the end (mainly focusing on positioning, which to a healer is probably the most important thing) as well as tips others probably weren't aware of (the dispell trick to get in combat quickly without causing the cooldown) I even provided a gameplay video of how I heal, utilizing everything I mentioned previously in the guide to further help aid others.

The macros that I provided, as I also mention, can be used as a template for all healing abilities, as that is what I use.

I'm starting to think you didn't fully read my guide, otherwise you wouldn't be bringing up these concerns. Please read it fully, and if you think there are areas I can improve it further, I am all ears for constructive criticism!

edit* One final point, is that the sets that I provided are generally the opposite to what others use, but through testing have worked very well for me and the play style I have outlined above. If you looked at the armories, they value other stats differently, so stating that this is just an armory with sparknotes is entirely wrong. I have NEVER seen another player, let alone holy paladin run a set even close to what I outlined in my third set.
 
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