I’ve been basically begging my guild to recruit a third holy paladin for months. A third holy paladin would have been great when the main holy paladin (who had been there when I arrived) ninja-transferred in the middle of the night after killing LK on 10-man for the first time and getting his Kingslayer title. A third holy paladin would have been awesome even last week, when I, and the current other holy paladin, both had our birthday celebrations. A third holy paladin would be great at any time for heroic Saurfang.
We had two holy paladin apps but one didn’t like the idea of sharing raid time at all, so he came up with some lame excuse and transferred. The other one stuck it out, is a member of the guild in good standing and is someone I know I can rely on to do what he’s told in a healing situation. Unfortunately, he’s also going to be unavailable for close to a month, starting, oh, nowish.
So I’ve spent some time over the last couple of days perusing wowlemmings looking for holy paladins who can meet our raid times, who are fairly geared and, here’s the kicker, know what the hell they’re doing in terms of gearing, enchanting, gemming, speccing and glyphing.
You would think that they would, for the most part, know what they’re doing. Particularly if they’re looking for a progressed guild, right? Well, they don’t. No kidding. They do not. Thus, here is what I look for (and therefore, what I don’t look for) when looking at a holy paladin’s armory. (Please note that this is what I look for when taking my current guild situation into account. That means typical raid makeup, encounters we’re working on and the like. Posting it here is basically showing you what my own rules of thumb/preferences are in general and there are, of course, a variety of circumstances that could change these preferences.)
1) Overall gear. Is the gear strictly out of heroics or from the Emblem of Frost vendor? If so, chances are slim that the rest of the stats will impress me. What I am looking for in particular:
– 2pc T10, even if it’s 251. Ideally, the helm and the shoulders, as these are our strongest pieces at 251/264/277 levels of gear.
– Talisman of Resurgence as one trinket and then a variety of others. Why Talisman? Well, it’s easy to get, stacks our best stat and has an on-use that helps to offset Divine Plea. Of course, FoL pallies would probably prefer two +spellpower trinkets, but for Holy Light pallies, I want to see Talisman. For the other, I would prefer Meteorite Crystal or heroic Solace of the Defeated, but will also be okay with regular Solace, Pandora’s Plea or even DMC: Greatness (Intellect). What would not wow me, but would still be better than a spellpower trinket for a Holy Light paladin, is Tears of the Vanquished.
– Something other than the badge shield. Even the 226 shield from Kel’Thuzad. I do not want to see Zom’s Crackling Bulwark or the Protective Barricade of the Light.
– At least the honored version of the Ashen Verdict ring. Sorry, you cannot step into an 11/12 HM guild if you’re not that familiar with the instance.
2) Gems. I want to see all +20 intellect and a Nightmare Tear or all +23 spellpower. If you’re all +intellect, I also want to see an Insightful Earthsiege Diamond as your meta and if you’re +spellpower, it’s that OR an Ember Skyflare. Pretty much no exceptions. If you have anything else as your meta, I’m moving on to the next paladin on the list.
3) Enchants. Helm is spellpower/mp5 for HL and spellpower/crit for FoL, shoulder is spellpower/mp5 with exalted Hodir or inscription for HL, spellpower/crit for FoL, chest is powerful stats, bracers is +16 intellect (HL) or +30 spellpower (FoL), gloves are +28 spellpower, belt has the extra buckle, legs are spellpower/stamina (if you use the spirit one, I swear to God, you need to be smacked), boots are either Greater Vitality or Tuskarr’s, weapon is either +63 spellpower (FoL but acceptable for HL) or+30 int (HL), shield is +25 int. Period. Again, there is VERY little room for argument.
4) Libram. This probably should be under overall gear, but it’s SO important that I felt it deserved its own little category. If you are a holy paladin and use Holy Light more often than not and you are NOT wearing the Libram of Renewal, you fail. Hardcore. Screw gearscore, this is ten thousand times more important than upping your ridiculously stupid gearscore by 50 points. I don’t even want to know that you exist if you don’t use this libram. If you are a holy paladin and use FoL more often than not and you are NOT wearing one of the Gladiator Librams that increases your FoL spellpower, then you ALSO fail and I definitely don’t want to ever meet you.
5) Haste rating. I’m going to try to be calm here, but I might lose it… If you don’t have 676 haste, GO OUT AND GET MORE FREAKING HASTE. Gah. What is wrong with people in ICC content, who have downed the Lich King who have like, 400 haste? You’re being idiots! EVERY holy paladin needs 676 at minimum and if you don’t have the spell haste buffs in your raid, you need MORE. You also need more if you cast Holy Light more. Do you get me? HASTE IS AWESOME. I have 936 haste and eat 40 haste food, for 976 haste PLUS Wrath of Air PLUS Swift Retribution Aura PLUS Judgements of the Pure. It is GOOD.
Ahem. Yes. Haste needs to be over 600 before I’ll take any holy paladin remotely seriously.
6) Spec. Holy Light paladins should have a prot subspec and FoL paladins should use a ret subspec. I don’t want to see you speccing into ret and Conviction if you’re gemmed all intellect and basically vice-versa. Don’t spec and gear half-assedly. Pick Holy Light or Flash of Light and spec/gear/gem accordingly. I also don’t want to see any crazy, cockamamie 68 points in holy. You go 51 or 52 or 54 points into holy and 5 or 17 or 20 into prot or 2 or 15 or 20 in ret. You definitely want your talents to be something like:
51/5/15 – FoL
51/20/0 – HL
51/0/20 – FoL
54/17/0 – HL
52/17/2 – HL
Check out this previous post of mine to help determine what talents you absolutely need to take and which are situational and debatable.
7) Glyphs. If you’re a Holy Light paladin, it’s Glyph of Seal of Wisdom, Glyph of Holy Light and Glyph of Beacon of Light. If you’re a FoL paladin, Glyph of Seal of Light, Glyph of Flash of Light, Glyph of Holy Light. If you use Beacon a ton, you might want to swap out Glyph of Holy Light. There’s a little wiggle room here, but not too much.
8) Achievements. If you’re a Hand of A’dal, you get extra points in my book. If you did any of the “big” fights before T9 became super easy to get (ie: Sarth 3D, various Ulduar hard modes, Algalon, etc), you get extra points. “Extra points” means I’ll be willing to listen to you defend some of your more bizarre choices in gear/enchants/etc. It is not a carte blanche to be a total moron when it comes to your character’s spec and equipment.
So there you go, what I look for on each paladin’s armory before I go posting the typical “hey, want to raid with us?” post.
As an aside, yes, as of May 14th, I am still pushing to get another holy paladin in. If anyone reading has a geared holy paladin and you’re looking for a new guild, here’s some info on us:
– mature PVE/PST server
– guild has been together for 4+ years, downed Algalon in Ulduar, TOC, TOGC (4/5), ICC25 12/12 and ICC25 HM 11/12
– raids are 8pm-11pm PST on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays
– you *must* run Grid/Clique or Grid/mouseover macros (not my requirement, but I’m okay with it) as well as DXE as a boss mod and AVR for Sindragosa and oRA2 and Omen
– definitely prefer a holy paladin who is HL-specced/geared at the moment, with the possibility of being able to play with FoL spec/gear in the future
Bear in mind that we don’t typically use Vent (or, at least, it’s not required).
We’re 11/12 HM and doing achievements NOW for Glory of the Icecrown Raider, so do not think we are your ticket to a mount. We are currently your ticket to hardmode loot as we push to down LK on heroic.
If you can make close to 100% attendence and feel you’re the type of paladin we’re looking for, email me for more details:
kurn [at] apotheosis-now [dot] com
(Note that that’s my personal address and not affiliated with the guild I’m currently a part of.)
You can also tweet me at kurnmogh on Twitter and we’ll chat. :)
I don’t have a holy pally to offer (but I’m glad to see my alt doesn’t fail to bad). I am intrigued by something else: how do you raid without Vent? It seems something vital to me and I couldn’t consider raiding in silence.
That site exists? Huh. Seems like a terrible place to look for guild apps, in my opinion.
Then again, it’s gotta’ be better than “reatdin lf raiding guild, PST.” No joke, I think VeCo’s trade is worse than Bronzebeard’s. At least Bronzebeard has Kutz. :(
I am mildly intrigued by this post and seriously considering mimicking it for Hunters.
Jen – admittedly, this was the biggest challenge for me. I came from a very social guild in Apotheosis; we all liked each other and had a good time. Vent was FUN and useful. What raiding without vent means is you need to be aware that there ARE no callouts and you really need to know what to expect during the encounter. I watch my bossmod timers very, very closely now, as opposed to previously. I watch for aggro switches like crazy. I listen to the boss emotes really carefully.
We also use a lot of macros. If I’m grabbed by a Val’kyr on the LK, I use my macro I have for the occasion, which informs the healers that I’ve been grabbed and to please watch the tanks. Same thing with Unchained Magic in P3 of Sindragosa HM.
Raiding without Vent forces you to be more aware of the encounter’s mechanics and forces you to rely on yourself instead of someone calling out switches or boss cooldowns. It’s nice to listen to music rather than mouthbreathers. ;D
X – wowlemmings goes through the official guild recruitment forums and picks out posts by people who want to join a new guild. You can sort it by region, by faction and by class. If not for wowlemmings, I wouldn’t have found half of my old Apotheosis guildies. It sifts through all the crap on the official forums FOR you. And the Idiot filter is a godsend. Seriously, it’s the best site I know of to help recruit people.
PM’s trade is worse than BB’s. :(
Rilgon – haha, you just get to a POINT, you know? How many fail paladins can I see in a row without commenting on it? Not that many, apparently. ;) Please feel free to mimic. :)
The next Hunter applicant I see with even a single Shifting Dreadstone in their gear or without Glyph of Steady Shot… *shakes fist*
Thanks for this post! It has given me the incentive to finally get my gear and gems sorted out! I’ve only recently joined a casual raiding guild, and they’re at 10/12 (normal) now I believe. I hope to be able to contribute to the paladins there, as I’ve seen some horrid spec/glyph and gear/gem combinations.
Rilgon – I will now ruin all hunter street cred I may have. I should have Glyph of SS if I’m survival? Er, Explosive, Serpent Sting and Kill Shot is what I’ve got, atm. Obviously, Shifting Dreadstone is less good than Nightmare Tear for the meta gem, though.
Kaboomski – glad to hear I’ve been of help. :)
You would turn me down!!! D: I use the Divinity glyph and I don’t do a Nightmare Tear, amg. QQ ;D Oh and I have the crit helm enchant. <_< I am terrible!
hahaha! I wouldn’t turn you down at all, knowing who you are. Even if I didn’t know you, I wouldn’t turn you down. I would, however, have a few questions. (Not that recruiting/inviting/etc is remotely up to me at all, but anyways.)
– Why go for +12 spellpower and +5 (?) mp5 instead of another 20 intellect from 2 Brilliants and then another 10 from a Nightmare Tear?
– Why the crit enchant over the mp5?
– Do you use LoH for mana regen purposes that frequently? What other glyphs do you have? (I presume Holy Light/Seal of Wisdom and the Divinity glyph is taking a spot that could be used for Glyph of BoL?)
Would love to hear more on your glyphing ideas and LOH use.
Like Codi – I’m pretty sure I still have the SP/Crit on my my helm, just as a holdover from my dally with FOL builds and old illumination.
I used to use the Divinity Glyph as well, but as we pushed deeper and deeper into the HMs, I discovered a few things.
1) I couldn’t afford to use the CD on myself – I needed it for the tanks, even if it was just for the 20% DR (I spec 2/2 into LoH instead of Con Aura or BoW).
2) Having an extra 30sec for BoL didn’t really save me any mana – but it did give me a little more wiggle room in refreshing it.
Nice writeup Kurn.
Just tanked SM – Armory and Library. Had a hunter who was… Well, a stereotypical hunter. Pulled when I was buffing, marked a target we weren’t focus firing, things like that. We stop for mana before Doan, and I notice something odd. So I ask.
“Why do you have a fishing pole equipped?”
We all had a laugh, including her, and she replied, “lol, i wondered why my dps was so low.” And she equipped her regular weapon.
http://www.wowhead.com/item=7753
Kurn –
Actually, if I replaced my orange gem and blue gem with a prismatic and a yellow, I would only gain 10 INT, losing 21 SP (socket bonus) and 5 MP5. I would also have to do a couple days worth of JCing quests to get the pattern to cut the Nightmare Tear… *coughs* XD Pretty much it comes down to item budget. I get more overall “value” from how I have my gems, despite both the gained stats being of lesser worth than the one I’m losing.
The helm enchant I -think- is because it was one of those “oshi- I forgot to enchant my new helm and I’m being summoned to the raid and I’m Dalaran!” things. But it could be that I just hate MP5. Because I do. LOL Re-enchanting my helm would put me over 200 MP5 before my two Solaces, which I just refuse to do. :P
For glyphs, I do use HL/Seal ‘o Wiz, because I’m not insane. XD I actually used to use LoH on myself for mana all the time, but due to gear upgrades I rarely do now. Instead, I now use it on one of the other healers CONSTANTLY. LOL Especially on the Disc priest! They love that little jolt of mana and I can feel good knowing that I get something out of it, too.
Durr, orange gem and GREEN gem. I’m not a complete idiot. XD
Wow, I’m obviously slacking on the replies…
adgamorix – Am I the only paladin who never used Glyph of Divinity? I used Glyph of Holy Shock until I was in TOC and struggling with mana issues due to recasting Beacon so frequently.
I agree about LOH, I’ve always needed to use it on tanks. Maybe my tanks have traditionally sucked (actually, I know some of my tanks have been craptastic, back in Ulduar! We had this one warrior tank, oh God…) but I’ve always seen LOH as the “OHSHITOHSHIT” button that it was pre-BC and in BC and always tried to manage my mana myself.
I strongly approve of any build that’s 2/2 LOH instead of 2/2 BOW if your other points are spent differently. (I run a 54/17/0 spec that is more to benefit my whole raid by virtue of 2/3 Imp Concentration Aura and I’m the imp wisdom bitch [which is a step up from being the kings bitch!] and I have Aura Mastery [which I rarely use since I’m always on Concentration Aura], but if I were building a build for myself, I’d probably go 52/17/2 or something and pick up imp BOW and imp LOH and drop imp Conc.)
I don’t like going into a raid without having at least one improved blessing. I think I’ve ALWAYS specced for imp BOW, even back to vanilla, but then, I was also That Paladin who specced 11 points into prot for kings. ;)
Ahem. Long, long story short, in these days, with resto shammies having the equivalent of imp BOW through imp Mana Spring, I value imp LOH over imp BOW, particularly if the raid already typically has a wisdom bitch in the raid.
X – bwahahahahaha.
Codi – Okay. I went stalker on you and got your armory link from your blog. >.>
First of all, I love that you’re practically all in mail, hahaha. :) Shammy gear is FTW!
Secondly, if you put in the Nightmare Tear in your helm, you’ll offset the spellpower loss from the chestpiece, since it’ll add +9 spellpower by activating the socket bonus on the helm.
Clearly, my math sucks, because you’re right in that you’ll only gain 10 int instead of the 20 I thought you’d get, but you’d only be down 12 spellpower from what you are now. While you’d be down 5mp5 from the dazzling, you’d make that up with the helm enchant, which is +10mp5, leaving you at 197mp5 instead of 192, which is still below 200mp5 while casting! ;D
Obviously, it’s just quibbling over bits and pieces, but I can better understand why you went this way after discussing it with you. :) I really like discussing this stuff with like-minded individuals, because we’ll all have our own preferences and our own reasoning why we like certain things.
Codi – Oh, and I wanted to add that I wish my guild were more cooperative like yours. We’re basically “every (wo)man for him/herself” when it comes to mana. I raid with one of my best friends IRL and have done so since September (barring most of March and April). I have been innervated by her precisely once. In part, that’s because Divine Plea + DivIll/Talisman of Resurgence/Wings is fine for my mana regen, but in part because no one publicly requests innervates or calls for a LOH or Mana Tide or anything like that.
We’re not very team-based in that sense, sadly, and I also feel bad asking for a CD that my friend might actually need to use for herself.
… maybe I’ll start using LOH on myself now and again and not just when I’m marked on Saurfang and am completely oom at the tail end of the fight. ;)
I’ve actually heard that a lot, Kurn, which makes me really sad for other raiding groups. :( Maybe it has to do with us only have a total of 5 healers in our section or the fact that we are all constantly doing non-raiding things with each other. The healer channel is well known as the party and gossip hub of our raiding coalition. LOL Your friend is the healing section lead, right? Why not talk to her/him about ways to foster more trust/communication with the healers? Or you can start the pattern yourself by offering up your LoH on vent to one of the others. :D
OH HEY, HELM SOCKET. Uh… I should be upgrading my helm this week, so I’ll probably regem to a Nightmare’s Tear then. XD Means I have to run that stupid JCing daily all week, though. Arg, I hate that thing….
Interesting note: I ended last expansion in almost all mail and I am ending this expansion in almost all mail. A pattern is forming! I am meant to play a shaman! ;D
I’m happy to think you’d probably not have too many complaints about me:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Cenarius&cn=Mythrin
I’m going to add this page to my list to send to all new holy pallies. If only I could keep up with your raid schedule, I’d consider applying.
> Gems. I want to see all +20 intellect
However about the +int gems, once I reached 34k mana unbuffed, and never going oom, I started putting +20 haste gems in all new gem sockets. Thoughts?
Codi – the closest we’ve gotten to people helping healers with mana issues is the disc priest asking ferals for innervates on LK and a call for Mana Tide totem on transition phases. It’s kind of cut-throat, which makes no sense. If we run oom or die, other people die. I probably should have worked to engender more cooperation when I was doing healing, but maybe I’ll talk to my RL friend about it next time we go for coffee.
Hee, hee, re: your helm socket. ;) I hear you about the JC daily. Drives me batty. I really should go get 3 more tokens to get Glinting Ametrine (for my hunter, for my brother’s hunter) but I can’t be bothered.
And noooooo, don’t re-roll shammy! Then we can’t hear you rant about FoL style pallies while drinking! ;D (Really enjoyed your comments on the podcast!)
ithilyn – You’re right, I have very few issues with you and the only major concern I have is that you’ve got 100 haste in gems instead of another 100 intellect.
I have 36k mana unbuffed and I DO occasionally go oom if I’m not careful. I also have over 900 haste. The goal here is to get haste, mp5, crit and spellpower from your gear ONLY (plus your helm, shoulder, cloak, gloves and pants enchants) and gem strictly for intellect. What I’m seeing when I look at your armory is that you probably mostly run ICC 10. There’s actually a LOT of really nice stuff out of ICC 10 with haste on it. Unfortunately, a lot of it is mail, but dropping down to mail isn’t a big deal, so long as you’re not ninjaing it from the shammies.
Check out this link, #2, for my look at 10-man holy paladin items:
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=786
I also recommend you actually downgrade the 264 shoulders you’re wearing to the 251 Tier 10 shoulders when you can — they have haste and are better itemized. The tier chest isn’t a bad piece, but it’s not the Chestguard of Siphoned Elements, which is pretty sweet. So if you can get that chest and the tier shoulders, make the switch when you have both pieces to both upgrade your haste and maintain your 2pc bonus. :)
If you drop all your current haste gems, you’ll end up at 642 haste, and I’d recommend eating 40 haste food to keep you at the 1s GCD/FoL casting time. :)
Thank you so much for all the advice, I will definitely swap the shoulders out for the t10, and work on getting that mail chest, as soon as I actually get to BQL :-). And also work on dropping those haste gems…
Kurn, I updated my gems and helm enchant just for you!!!! XD
I was going to comment, but, but … Well, lets assume that my rant below is a comment :D
My long and wordy comment-that-ended-up-a-post :D