There was a new beta build released last night, so you get a new post about it from me today.<\/p>\n
Upon selecting the holy tree to place your talents, according to this latest beta build, you get:<\/p>\n
– Holy Shock
\n– Meditation (Allows 50% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting.)
\n– Healing Bonus (Increases the effectiveness of your healing spells by 10%.)
\n– Spiritual Focus (Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Flash of Light, Holy Light and Divine Light by 70%.)<\/p>\n
The first thing to do when faced with the talents is to read everything in holy and everything in the first two tiers of prot and ret. There’s a lot of reading. Here are some of my thoughts.<\/p>\n
Holy Tree<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Tier 1 Divinity (3)<\/span>: Check it out, two less talent points to gain 1% extra healing (3 points\/6% instead of the current 5 points\/5%). Nice.<\/p>\n Judgements of the Pure (3)<\/span>: Since this is also accessible to prots and rets, I suppose that I can live with losing my 6% haste. I don’t want a ret pally smashing me in the face 15% faster, do you? I would prefer this to be a deep holy talent back to 15%, of course, but the last beta build had this on Tier 2 and now they’ve made it more accessible to everyone by putting it in Tier 1. So I can say goodbye to my 15%.<\/p>\n Tier 2<\/em><\/p>\n Clarity of Purpose (3)<\/span>: After years of seeing “0.5” seconds off various casts, Clarity of Purpose seems awkward. .3 seconds off Holy Light and Divine Light? I’m concerned too, because Light’s Grace is nowhere to be found. Anyways, still a talent that seems like we should be taking it.<\/p>\n Improved Lay on Hands (2)<\/span>: Hasn’t changed, still a great raid-saver.<\/p>\n Healing Light (3)<\/span>: 12% bonus healing to FoL, HL, Divine Light, Word of Glory and Holy Shock. Yes, please. I like that this is actually 22% more effective than our prot and ret cousins, due to the Healing Bonus you get just for being holy.<\/p>\n Tier 3<\/em><\/p>\n Now we get into areas that the other pallies can’t touch. This is our domain entirely.<\/p>\n Illumination (3)<\/span>: Non-bloated Illumination stays. Three points that are probably well-worth the mana return. Again, bumping this back to 100% or even 60% would be my personal preference. Alas!<\/p>\n Divine Favor (1)<\/span>: Despite the Divine Illumination icon, this is our old, dear friend. No-brainer here, even if it weren’t linked to other talents down the line.<\/p>\n Infusion of Light (2)<\/span>: A change! Holy Shock crits reduce Holy Light’s cast time by .75\/1.5 seconds. So let’s see if I’ve got this straight. 2.5 second base cast time for Holy Light. -.3 seconds = 2.2 seconds. = 1.5 seconds = .7 second cast time on Holy Light after a Holy Shock crit, before Judgements of the Pure and before haste gear\/raid buffs?<\/p>\n Anyone else think they screwed up and meant to put Flash of Light in there? That seems way too good, although I’d miss my instant FoL.<\/p>\n Enlightened Judgements (2)<\/span>: No-brainer, let’s get that extra range.<\/p>\n Tier 4<\/em><\/p>\n Beacon of Light (1)<\/span>: I’m sure this isn’t the right Beacon of Light spell. It says “each heal” and isn’t limited to certain heals. I expect this to be changed.<\/p>\n Speed of Light (3)<\/span>: Har, har, cute name. :P 30% spell haste for FoL, HL, DL, lower cooldown on Healing Hands and an increase in movement speed when we cast Healing Hands. I don’t see a downside.<\/p>\n Sacred Cleansing (1)<\/span>: Gotta grab this to ensure you can dispel Magic!<\/p>\n Tier 5<\/em><\/p>\n Aura Mastery (1)<\/span>: Again, worth getting even if it didn’t lead to anything else.<\/p>\n Denounce (2)<\/span>: PVP talent, it looks like. A free, instant Exorcism anytime you get a Holy crit.<\/p>\n Improved Concentration Aura (3)<\/span>: Same as today. Again, a little boring if not for use in PVP.<\/p>\n Tier 6<\/em><\/p>\n Tower of Radiance (3)<\/span>: Aha, another way to generate Holy Power and a reason to cast directly on your beacon target! I don’t know what the percentages are, but I would assume 33\/66\/100%?<\/p>\n Blessed Life (2)<\/span>: 5\/10% chance for attacks to cause half damage. PVP talent in Cataclysm as it is in WotLK.<\/p>\n Tier 7<\/em><\/p>\n Light of Dawn (1)<\/span>: 21% of base mana, instant cast, 30 second cooldown, Send a wave of healing energy before you, healing all friendly targets up to 30 yards away for 1.<\/p>\n Well, assuming it’s for more than “1”, yowza. This might actually be a worthy 31-point talent.<\/p>\n I went to my RL friend the resto druid’s today, but she hadn’t patched in a couple of builds, so I didn’t get to mess around with beta. Maybe this weekend, though. In her words, though, just by the description, Light of Dawn is “OMG SO OP AND SO UNFAIR!” hahaha.<\/p>\n Okay, so let’s look at prot and ret and talents that may help us out there.<\/p>\n Protection Tree<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Tier 1<\/em><\/p>\n Toughness, nah. Seals of the Pure? Meh. Improved Hammer of Justice, ick.<\/p>\n Tier 2<\/em><\/p>\n Judgements of the Just, not really for holy.<\/p>\n But wait!<\/p>\n Protector of the Innocent (3)<\/span>: +6% healing to those the Aura covered and -3% damage to you, personally. Maybe not a bad idea. That extra healing probably doesn’t stack with what was Tree of Life aura, although they don’t seem to have a persistent healing increase aura anymore. However, the resto druids don’t look anywhere near finished — Swiftmend is what they get when they spec resto and it’s still a talent in the tree.<\/p>\n Not a bad idea here, though. If there’s no prot pally or ret pally taking this, this isn’t bad.<\/p>\n Guardian’s Favor (2)<\/span>: If I’m speccing for Protector of the Innocent, I am definitely grabbing Guardian’s Favor. I love this ability.<\/p>\n Retribution Tree<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Tier 1<\/em><\/p>\n Eye for an Eye, not for holy.<\/p>\n Rule of Law (3)<\/span>: Ooooh. Now this<\/em> is interesting. 5\/10\/15% increased critical strike chance on Holy Light and Crusader Strike. Huh. Definitely something a holy paladin wants.<\/p>\n Crusade (3)<\/span>: Increases the damage and healing of Crusader Strike, Hammer of the Righteous, Templar’s Verdict and Holy Shock by 10\/20\/30%. Interesting. Probably want to grab this since it looks like Holy Shock will be a key part of our toolbox.<\/p>\n Tier 2<\/em><\/p>\n Improved Judgement, probably not for holy.<\/p>\n Conviction (3)<\/span>: Gives you a 1\/2\/3% bonus to damage and healing for 30 seconds after causing a critical effect from a weapon swing, spell or ability, stacks up to 3 times. Sooooo… just by critting, you want to give me 9% extra healing? Uh. Okay!<\/p>\n Pursuit of Justice (2)<\/span>: Run speed is always good, but you can just enchant your boots. Dealer’s choice here, really.<\/p>\n So, having looked at all of those talents, here’s what I predict the optimum PVE Holy Paladin build will look like, depending on the % chance to generate Holy Power from Tower of Radiance:<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>
\nSanctified Light (2)<\/span> : Accessible to prot and ret, this talent is attractive for increasing Judgement crit chance, but is also good for us for 12% increased chance to crit on Holy Shock and Word of Glory — which is that Holy Power instant heal I discussed yesterday. More crit is almost certainly a good thing.<\/p>\n