Paladin Holy

Holy Build Paladin

Contributed by Stonemantle

Contents

For the last two generations, the Paladins of the Grand Alliance have been at the fore of every battle, inspiring their fellow warriors to great feats and protecting them against the twin evils of the undead and the demonic. Using a combination of powerful weapons and blessed holy magic, the Paladins wade into the centre of battle, fearlessly challenging all the enemies of the Alliance.

Strengths –

  • Can wear the heaviest armour types in the game.
  • Has a selection of “always on” auras which cost nothing to cast and can not be dispelled.
  • Can heal and resurrected injured and fallen party members.
  • Stun abilities.
  • Has the best spell in the game for removing poisons and disease.
  • Excellent durability compared to other healing classes

Weaknesses –

  • Very low damage per second.
  • Self buffs are easily dispelled.
  • Skills are entirely mana dependant combined with a comparatively low mana pool.
  • Grinds and solos very slowly due to low damage output.
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Party role –

In solo play, a Holy Paladin works much the same as any other type of Paladin but will find itself using heals more than other builds due to its lower then usual damage per second. In party play a Holy Paladin shines, able to support healers and adding their own unique spells to the mix. With a Holy tech, the Paladin will spend comparatively little time attacking his enemies, and more time judging them and casting flash of light on members who need their health bars topped up to give primary healers a break to conserve their mana for their more potent spells. Keeping on top of poisons and diseases will also tend to be a major role for the holy build Paladin. In the case of a party’s tanks going down, a Paladin can spare a parties casters and damage doers agro with a bit of fast play and can also pick up runners going for other support characters.

Not your party role –

You’re there as a class that can do anything but with a Holy build you’re acting as you’re party’s insurance, during combat conserve your mana and stay on top of your own healing rather than diverting a primary healers attention to healing a player who is fully capable of looking after themselves. You shouldn’t be the main healer for a party for any serious length of time, especially in raids of twenty and above. Should you find yourself as main healer, alert the raid leader so that at least they can decide whether to move their healers to you or to combat resurrect one of your fallen ones.

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Talents –

Since this guide is focusing on a Holy teched Paladin, below is the build I find most useful with some explanations on game play based on the build afterwards. At the 60th level players will have 51 talent points to spend.

Tier One: I’m a fan of passive benefits and the tier one of the holy tree help Paladins a lot, adding to two of their main attributes at the start of a tree. This makes them a viable choice for Paladins of other techs to reach them as well. With the 1.9 talents I spend my first 10 points in these two slots.

Divine Strength 0/5 – Increases your strength by 2% a rank up to 10%.

Divine Intellect 0/5 – Increases your intellect by 2% a rank up to 10%

Tier Two: Depending on your level you’ll spend more points in tier two. At level 60 I spend most of my time in groups so the improved Seal of Righteousness isn’t as important as it was while having to grind a lot. Being a holy Paladin means that Spiritual Focus is an absolute must have.

Spiritual Focus 0/5 – Gives your Flash of Light and Holy Light spells a 14% chance to not lose casting time when you take damage up to a maximum of 70%

Improved Seal of Righteousness 0/5 – Increases the damage done by your Seal of Righteousness by 3% up to a maximum of 15%

Tier Three: This is a tier full of incredibly useful talents, Healing Light enables you to make a reasonable dint in health bars, consecration allows you to take advantage of a holy Paladin’s increased mana pool to do some quite dangerous area of effect damage and for one talent point I would highly recommend it. Improved lay of hands allows you to use perhaps one of your most potent spells more frequently and improve its effectiveness. Unyielding faith keeps you from running at the worst moments and is hugely useful in Player vs Player combat. These are all talents I would recommend maxing out.

Healing Light 0/3 – Increases the amount healed by your Holy Light and Flash of Light spells by 4% up to a maximum of 12%.

Consecration 0/1 – Consecrates the land beneath the Paladin, doing 64 Holy damage over 8 sec to enemies who enter the area.

Improved Lay of Hands 0/1 – Gives the target of your Lay on Hands spell a 15% bonus to their armour value from items for 2 min. In addition, the cool down for your Lay on Hands spell is reduced by 10 min.

Unyielding Faith 0/2 – Increases your chance to resist Fear and Disorient effects by an additional 5%.

Tier Four: Illumination lets you increase the amount of time you can remain as a healer in a battle, combined with later talents its lethal. Improved Blessing of Wisdom is now far better then it was in 1.8 and earlier, condensing 5 talent points into only two.

Illumination 0/5 – After getting a critical effect from your Flash of Light or Holy Light spell, gives you a 20% chance to gain Mana equal to the base cost of your spell up to a maximum of 100% chance.

Improved Blessing of Wisdom 0/2 – Increases the effect of your Blessing of Wisdom spell by 10% up to a maximum of 20%.

Tier Five: The use of Divine Favour means that when you must get a powerful heal off, you can guarantee it, however it becomes even more potent if you combine it with 5 points in Illumination meaning that you get the full mana cost of the spell back as well. Lasting judgement is good, but perhaps not worth three talent points. The mana you save on only casting it once a minute compared to once every thirty seconds doesn’t offset the three talent points you’d have to spend there.

Divine Favour 0/1 – When activated, gives your next Flash of Light or Holy Light spell a 100% critical effect chance.

Lasting Judgement 0/3 – Increases the duration of your Judgement of Light and Judgement of Wisdom by 10 sec to a maximum of 30 seconds.

Tier Six: From now on talent spending comes to personal preference. Increasing your critical chance is good if you’re looking to spam your spells, making Exorcism and so on far more potent

Holy Power 0/5 – Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 1% up to a maximum of 5%.

Tier Seven: A nice skill for only one talent point. Instant heal and a ranged attack spell which will effect none undead enemies as normal.

Holy Shock 0/1 – Blasts the target with Holy energy, causing 204 to 220 Holy damage to an enemy, or 204 to 220 healing to an ally.

Suggested Point Spending – Although it is possible to have every single talent bought from the Holy tree, I personally don’t believe it is useful when there are other good talents available, hence the remainder of my talent points are spent in the protection tree. The reason for this is straight forward and returns to the party role of the Holy Paladin. The longer you stay alive, the more help you provide to your party. With that in mind points have been spent in improving Devotion aura, a couple of points in Redoubt for when you use a shield, some points in Precision (see earlier comment on liking passive skills), Guardian’s Favour for saving cloth wearers and healers who have agroed and Toughness to improve your own durability. Finally a point was used to buy Blessing of Kings, an excellent buff which will see a lot of use.

Holy Talents:

Divine Strength – 5/5 Divine Intellect – 5/5 Spiritual Focus – 5/5 Healing Light – 3/3 Consecration – 1/1 Improved Lay of Hands – 2/2 Unyielding Faith – 2/2 Illumination – 5/5 Improved Blessing of Wisdom – 2/2 Divine Favour – 1/1 Holy Shock – 1/1

Total Spent on Holy Talents: 32 points

Protection Talents:

Improved Devotion Aura – 5/5 Redoubt – 3/5 Precision – 3/3 Guardian’s Favour – 2/2 Toughness – 5/5 Blessing of Kings – 1/1

Total Spend on Protection Talents: 19 points

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Other spells of note –

Below is some information on spells I use frequently and any advice I’ve gained through gaming.

Divine Intervention:

This is the spell you use when all else fails. Used correctly it can prevent an instance wipe allowing a party to avoid respawns and get back on its feet quickly. Used badly however and you can become very unpopular very quickly. Good targets for this are actually Paladins, as they are usually one of the last classes to die and have a resurrect spell themselves. Priests and Druids are also decent choices. The spell works by effectively removing the target player from combat for 30 seconds, as long as the mobs have reset by then and the target isn’t in range to agro them once more, the target can then set about resurrecting the party. Make sure you have the reagents you need as well before you go on a raid.

Redemption:

I have only one thing to say – do the quest for the spell, you are wasting everyone’s time if you don’t.

Auras:

These are ace, no mana cost, instant cast, unlimited time spells which are none dispellable. Make sure you always have one on and be prepared to change them mid combat for different situations. Dealt with the melee mobs and only casters left? Switch to the appropriate aura to negate some of their magic.

Cleanse:

Great spell, low mana cost, 100% effective against disease, magic and poison. Spam this in parties and it’ll be appreciated, freeing up priests and druids to cast more important spells such as healing.

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Useful Macros –

I use this one when partied with another healer to minimise wasted heals. Double healing helps no one so make sure your other healers know what you’re doing. This macro will re-acquire your last enemy as well so you can get back into combat as quickly as possible.

/cast Healing Spell Name (rank of spell)
/raid *** Healing %t ***
/script TargetLastEnemy()

Conclusion…

That’s about it. Go out and try things. With the judgement and seal system experimentation and varied combination is the way to understand your character. Be flexible and see how many times you save a wipe, take over from a main healer, take over from a tank or just add damage through consecration and exorcism. Good luck and post any ideas below this one.