So, I've been away from the game for about two years now. A lot has changed. I've been lurking and doing my best to get myself up to speed on my class, paladin, while also leveling. I play a Holy Spec Paladin and was wondering if people would be willing to answer some questions to make sure I'm on the right track.
1) I'm gearing for HL, it is my prefered play style and seem viable for heroics and raiding when my levels/gear are there. What numbers should I be aiming for Haste/INT and what gear should I aim to get to support it.
2) As a Healadin should I put my points into Holy/Ret or is it better to go Holy/Prot?
3) Coming into WotLK late, should I just do everything in my power to get badges and get the first set of T9 or should I be gearing for Naxx/Uld?
Any other advice and guidence people would be willing to give me is appreciated. Long absence means a lot of catching up to do.
Rocman
Earthern Ring
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Some help catching upFollow
First off, welcome back to the game. (they always come back!)
To answer your questions (roughly):
1. You should aim for 500 Haste to start with looking towards the soft cap of 676 (1 sec GCD) but no need to gem for it, should pretty much all come gear. Haste/Mp5 is the optimal stat distribution you want. A mana pool of around 25k unbuffed should be sufficient up to normal Coliseum raids.
2. Holy/Prot is the recognised raiding spec for Divine Guardian. There was some theorycrafting done on EJ which also proved that the mana savings from the improved Sacred Shield alone beat the mana return derived from the extra crit from Ret tree. This is due to the nerf to illumination in patch 3.2
3. Assuming you have significant raiding experience from previous playing time, you would probably be best off farming emblems for the badge gear and running a few raids on the side. It's easily the quickest way to gear up and the new heroic gear is far better than Naxx and even some Ulduar gear.
Make sure you pick up the Holy Light glyph, it's practically mandatory for a HL build!
Good luck!
To answer your questions (roughly):
1. You should aim for 500 Haste to start with looking towards the soft cap of 676 (1 sec GCD) but no need to gem for it, should pretty much all come gear. Haste/Mp5 is the optimal stat distribution you want. A mana pool of around 25k unbuffed should be sufficient up to normal Coliseum raids.
2. Holy/Prot is the recognised raiding spec for Divine Guardian. There was some theorycrafting done on EJ which also proved that the mana savings from the improved Sacred Shield alone beat the mana return derived from the extra crit from Ret tree. This is due to the nerf to illumination in patch 3.2
3. Assuming you have significant raiding experience from previous playing time, you would probably be best off farming emblems for the badge gear and running a few raids on the side. It's easily the quickest way to gear up and the new heroic gear is far better than Naxx and even some Ulduar gear.
Make sure you pick up the Holy Light glyph, it's practically mandatory for a HL build!
Good luck!
I endorse everything bawbaag said. I'd also add:
- A lot of the value of the Prot subspec is due to encounters designed around largely unavoidable raidwide damage. Divine Guardian, Sacred Shield, Hand of Sacrifice, and Aura Mastery (the last two not exclusive to Prot, of course) give us a lot of tools to mitigate damage in addition to healing it.
- I don't rate T9 gear very highly. The 2-pc set bonus is marginally useful in a limited fraction of content. The chest and legs are indifferently itemized and beaten by 232 drops from Frozen Halls instances. And while the helm and shoulder are better, they're both in competition with superior badge-purchased offset items.
- Don't forget that with Seal of Wisdom (and especially if Wisdom is also judged on the target), Judgements return mana. That's another hidden key to mana regen - keeping your debuff up on the target is a net positive if you can spare the GCD.
- A lot of the value of the Prot subspec is due to encounters designed around largely unavoidable raidwide damage. Divine Guardian, Sacred Shield, Hand of Sacrifice, and Aura Mastery (the last two not exclusive to Prot, of course) give us a lot of tools to mitigate damage in addition to healing it.
- I don't rate T9 gear very highly. The 2-pc set bonus is marginally useful in a limited fraction of content. The chest and legs are indifferently itemized and beaten by 232 drops from Frozen Halls instances. And while the helm and shoulder are better, they're both in competition with superior badge-purchased offset items.
- Don't forget that with Seal of Wisdom (and especially if Wisdom is also judged on the target), Judgements return mana. That's another hidden key to mana regen - keeping your debuff up on the target is a net positive if you can spare the GCD.
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