Prot-healing Paladin General Tips!

[ranlor]

My attempt to contribute with some tips on how to make the Holy/ProtTalent Calculator - World of Warcraft spec work a little better for you.

To avoid a wall of text I'm going to use different font colors so I can be cool, so bare with me.

The basic purpose of this spec, as you can see from looking over it, is a high rate of survivability without a huge gimp to your ability to heal. What you might think right away is it's not enough points in healing, but it really is. With the Touched by the Light talent, it increases the amount your critical heals do, so my flash of lights basically critically heal for eight to ten thousand.

Which brings me to the first part of this"Guide", healing. You need to go ahead and take Holy Light off of your bars, because you don't need it. It is arguable that it's still helpful if you need to bubble and top yourself/team mates off, but trust me, you'll be more mana efficient and better off with Flash of Light. The reasoning behind this is your flash of light, as I stated above, can critically heal for up to ten thousand, where as your Holy Light will base heal for around that much, with a much higher mana cost. So once you factor in mana, number of heals cast and healing done, all while in combat, Flash of Light is the better choice. Keeping Sacred Shield up on your target will help tremendously as well, as whenever it procs it gives your Flash of Light a 50% to critically heal, putting you at about an 80% chance, depending on your gear.

Now onto offensive play. The key of this spec is the ability to deal a nice amount of burst, considering you are in fact a healer. Avenger's Shield and Hammer of Justice are very helpful methods of Crowd Control, both in Battlegrounds and Arenas. Together you can CC a healer for up to nine seconds, along with whatever else your partner(s) can do, that is more than enough time to burst a druid or what-not down. Judgments are another thing. I tend to only judge a target when my team mate(warrior) is attacking it, because otherwise it is a waste of mana, unless it is Judgment of Justice on a druid trying to kite, then it is up to you really. Shield of Righteousness is a very helpful ability when there is someone up in your grills trying to smack you. Generally it can crit for four-thousand, making it a useful tool, however not dependable in tight spots.

Now onto basic survival tips! Holy Shield is a must at all times when there is a rogue or Mortal Strike warrior on you. It deals out 600 or more damage to them each time they hit you, while increasing your block value by 30%. Making it a very useful counter ability to melee classes.

Second tool you have is Aura Mastery, to clarify what this ability does is when you have Concentration Aura active, it makes you immune to silence and interrupts for ten seconds, very helpful in tight spots. It also increased the effect of any Aura by 100% for ten seconds, if you do not have Concentration active. This is mostly helpful against Death Knights, Shaman and Mages, but can be just as effective against every class.

Divine Sacrifice: I find this to be one of the most helpful tools in my Arena toolbox, just because of its ability to take me out of most cc. Basicly what you can do with it is say you fight a team with a rogue on it, to avoid saps is you through that up and it will transfer any damage done to your partner to you, breaking sap. Also breaking Sheep; Blind, Seduce and many other damage breaking CCs. It works the same way as Hand of Sacrifice, just transfers damage from all party members, instead of just one.

Buff and Gear Tips:

This part is pretty straight forward, Blessing of Kings on yourself is almost essential. By giving yourself the extra 10% stamina you increase your Spell Power, also the 10% to intellect helps your Mana Pool and Spell Crit. Blessing of Sanctuary is slightly helpful, however I find Kings to be more effective over-all.

Seal of Wisdom is what I prefer to use, because I have Glyph of Seal of Wisdom, which reduces to mana cost of all healing spells by 5%. Making it the most effective healing seal.

Righteous Fury is a must, having the talents in it make you take 6% less damage with it active.

Lastly, Concentration Aura is the aura of choice for obvious reasons.

As for gear and Gems/Enchants, basically what you want to do is get PvP gear(Duh.) and instead of gemming and Enchanting it with healing gems and enchants, you are going to go ahead and through 24 stamina gems in all slots, and stamina enchants on everything you can. What this does is increases your healing and survivability quiet a bit.

That just abouts sums up the general tips for this spec in PvP, I can offer a more extensive guide if you like this one, I was just feeling a bit bored so I figured I would contribute with this. Enjoy.

[rawflstomp]

I'll tell you my guide. Key bind everything to Flash of Light, Lay on Hand and Bubble....the end you win ...lol jk jk nice guide +rape when i can yo XD

[Skaven]

I am not a PVP lover, but these seem reasonable hints.

Anyway, i have yet to see non-ret paladins in arena...

[deathtalon]

Im playing Prot healing in arena at the moment. What i will say is that once you get enough gear dont gem or enchant for stam.

Once you are at about 28k hp and people realise they are struggling to hurt you through sacred and holy shields they will go for your partner.

Gemming raw spell power gives a better boost to SP (obviously) and will benefit your shields too. I gemmed stam until we started buying furious offset pieces and i have more than enough to be able to switch to SP gems and enchants.

There is a big topic on Arena Junkies :

Protholy Paladin Tips - Go Prot! - Arena Junkies Forums

[deathtalon]

A couple of extra tips :

I find that its better to use Ret Aura when they beat on you. I find i can survive long enough to get through kicks etc without needing Aura Mastery. If it gets dicey i can switch to conc aura and pop mastery. The added damage to people beating on you keeps their healer out and allows your Warrior/ DK (best partners for this spec) to keep on them.

The silence on Avengers shield is godly and the added bonus is that it can hit for about 3.5k in hateful gear gemmed for SP. 7k crits when going for a kill is a beauty to behold

Dont gem for crit as you rely on the 50% crit from Sacred Shield, swapping the shield as the dps focus changes.

There are a couple of variations on the spec. I sacrifice the 3% int talent from holy to get Hammer of the righteous to pile out a bit more preassure.

The World of Warcraft Armory

Add /startattack to macros for flash of light so that you are always hitting someone for either seal of wis or seal of light procs. You can tank hunter pets and rogues pretty easily like this.

Ill add more if i think of it / remember...

Glyphs....

I use Avengers Shield (to double its damage) and Glyph of Salvation (Hand of salvation on yourself lowers inc dmg by 20%) for when you are getting trained by double dps. I also use Seal of Light Glyph for the extra healing power over the mana saving. I prefer to pop Divine Plea if the damage isnt too heavy and refresh it with hits. I

[ranlor]

Im playing Prot healing in arena at the moment. What i will say is that once you get enough gear dont gem or enchant for stam.

Once you are at about 28k hp and people realise they are struggling to hurt you through sacred and holy shields they will go for your partner.

Gemming raw spell power gives a better boost to SP (obviously) and will benefit your shields too. I gemmed stam until we started buying furious offset pieces and i have more than enough to be able to switch to SP gems and enchants.

There is a big topic on Arena Junkies :

Protholy Paladin Tips - Go Prot! - Arena Junkies Forums

Gemming stamina does give you spell power, not as much as gemming raw SP obviously but it does give you some, which is the better way to go because you'll be able to take more hits.

[deathtalon]

you see this is where you and i disagree....

24 stam gem gives about 30 stam with kings and talents. thats 9 added spell power from the talent. So you are gaining alot of stam but losing 10 spell power.

From an item budget PoV it makes sense to gem stam but... I find that i can keep myself healed that I'm not going below x% anyway. The 10 Spell power * number of sockets + enchants helps both me and my partner whereas stam helps only me.

How many times in arena have you gone into your last 2k of life and survived? how many heals did you cast and would 150 ish extra healing on each have had the same effect? Now how many games did you lose where they killed you partner?

Granted a good amount of stam is good and the added spell power is a bonus, but its not ALWAYS better to gem stam

[ranlor]

You mustn't be a very good healer if you gem all full spell power gems. I've been playing a healing class for five years and never have I gemmed full healing(as in a gem that gives just healing). Granted, you may think using 24 stam gems and only gaining 9 spell power is lowering your survivability, but it isn't. As for your questions, I'll answer them all.

1) Just about every time.
2) It wouldn't help enough because I wouldn't have an extra 150, I would have an extra 30ish.
3)Two in the past six seasons of arenas.

[random1234]

You mustn't be a very good healer if you gem all full spell power gems. I've been playing a healing class for five years and never have I gemmed full healing(as in a gem that gives just healing). Granted, you may think using 24 stam gems and only gaining 9 spell power is lowering your survivability, but it isn't. As for your questions, I'll answer them all.

1) Just about every time.
2) It wouldn't help enough because I wouldn't have an extra 150, I would have an extra 30ish.
3)Two in the past six seasons of arenas.

What a bunch of bull