Monday, July 11, 2011

Holy Paladin Builds

Blizzard's class dev team is probably estatic at how their changes have worked out for Holy Paladins. Holy Paladin theorycraft is all over the map at the moment. As I can see it, there are currently three different stat weights being discussed.

1. Intellect > Spirit > Haste > Crit > Mastery

The standard build from 4.1. It's still the best build if you have to raid heal, and is also the most versatile build.

2. Mastery > Intellect > Spirit > Haste > Crit

The ultimate single-tank healing build. Insanely large mastery shields buffer the tank's health. Probably only viable in 25-man raiding with good raid healers to cover for you.

3. Intellect > Mastery > Crit > Haste > Spirit

Eloderung of Eternal Reign is touting this build. He says that it is a very strong two-tank Beacon healing build. It relies a bit more on Holy Light, and takes advantage of all three new mechanics: 100% HL transfer through Beacon, 200% crits, and a stronger mastery. Unlike build 2, this is likely a viable build for 10-mans.

This is probably the most interesting time to be a Holy Paladin in a long while. Excellent work, Blizzard!

6 comments:

  1. I am also very happy with the changes myself. Build 3 seems to be my most comfortable setup most of the time. I only run 10 mans and heroics anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Can you link up the discussion on the last build? I end up tank healing (both tanks) in a 10 man guild most of the time. I am going the first way now, because the second is way too much of a niche for a 10 man healer to go towards.

    But I like different.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's in the middle of Zaroua's Mastery post on the official forums. You just have to dig through the thread.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Here is the start of Eloderung's discussion of his stat priorities.

    (This way you get to skip all the usual stupidity, in which a healer for a past world #1 guild says "my Mastery-heavy build is really only suitable for 25-man raids, but works for my very specific needs", then a bunch of retards say "How dare you? It's bad for 10-man raids! It can't work! Prove that your guild is killing bosses with it!" Sheesh.)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I read over it, and it's all very interesting.

    I raid in a 10 man group, but I raid with really strong raid healers and I basically end up healing the tanks non stop and hitting Holy Radiance sometimes.

    I am basically doing the play style that Eloderung suggests, anyway. Beacon a tank. Heal the other. Use Holy Radiance sometime.

    I am going to regem and reforge and drop a bunch of spirit and haste. Go crit mastery and see how it stacks up.

    They make strong arguments for the uselessness of Spirit. 1,000 spirit gives you the ability to turn one Holy Light into a DL every minute. Not very exciting.

    Thanks for pointing this out. I had seen the original post, but, I'm not a 25 man raider in a top guild, so it did not much apply to me.

    ReplyDelete
  6. allerian of dragonblight US
    im using the 3rd build at the moment on 10 man raids. pretty viable build in my opinion. having 25% of my heals to become shield is very nice. and the holy light transfer on the beacon target is nice too having it crit for 20k is like doing divine light already and serves divine light as a emergency heals.

    ReplyDelete