Sunday, June 12, 2011

Holy Paladins in 4.2

Patch 4.2 appears to coming out pretty soon, and there actually a decent number of changes for PvE Holy Paladins. Here's the list of pertinent changes:
  • All healing critical strikes now heal for 2 times a normal heal (+100%), up from 1.5 times a normal heal (+50%).
  • Divine Light mana cost has been increased to 35% of base mana, up from 30%.
  • Flash of Light mana cost has been increased to 31% of base mana, up from 27%.
  • Holy Light mana cost has been increased to 12% of base mana, up from 10%.
  • Beacon of Light can no longer be dispelled. In addition, it now transfers 100% of the heal from Holy Light, but still 50% of the heal from other spells.
  • Holy Shock mana cost has been decreased to 7% of base mana, down from 8%.
  • Illuminated Healing (Mastery) has been adjusted slightly so that if a paladin refreshes an existing copy of his or her own Illuminated Healing on a target, the new absorption amount will be added into the old absorption amount and the duration will be reset. The total absorption created can never exceed 1/3 of the casting paladin's health.
  • Speed of Light now increases movement speed when Holy Radiance or Divine Protection are cast. In addition, this talent now reduces the cooldown of Holy Radiance by 13/26/40 seconds, up from 10/20/30.
  • Walk in the Light now improves Word of Glory healing by 30%, in addition to its current effects.

None of the changes are particularly drastic. Cumulatively, a Holy paladin should cast Divine Light less, and Holy Light more. Mastery smooths out, and critical strike rating becomes more valuable. You can use Holy Radiance more often, or have it available faster if you make a mistake with it. Word of Glory becomes much more powerful once again.

I'm actually planning to go back to the Word of Glory talents in 4.2.

For stat weights, mastery and critical strike rating both get a boost. The two stats also work well with each other. I'm not sure if either is better than haste, though.

One thing I'm considering is treating mastery, haste and crit as more or less equal, and only reforging to spirit. I'm not sure if this is a good idea, though. Haste is pretty hard to math out.

2 comments:

  1. I wonder if you can still Spellsteal Beacon of Light.

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  2. My thoughts were pretty similar on our secondary stats. I haven't done any research, but I imagine I would look at the Holy Radiance break points for haste and make sure I am just over one, and then balance out crit/mastery.

    I am curious to see what the consensus works out to be.

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