The Light and How to Swing It: Holy paladin gear enchants, part 1
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Apr 2nd 2008 at 11:30AM
A few months back, I did a rogue column on how rogues can enhance their gear with enchantments, gems, armor kits and the like. Well, it's time for paladins to get a similar guide -- in three different forms! Yes, since paladins have three main specs for three different roles, they need some wildly different enchantments. Today, we'll look at above-the-belt enhancements for a regular ol' endgame healing paladin, soon to be followed by prot and ret recommendations. (Shockadins, just grab the caster junk like usual.)
Head
Glyph of Renewal: This item, available for 90g once you get revered with Honor Hold or Thrallmar, gives you a one-time boost to your head item's healing and mp/5. Revered with HH/Thrall isn't too hard, and you need all the mp/5 you can get, so pick this up if you're planning on any serious healing. 10/10 PVE, 7/10 PVP.
Glyph of the Gladiator: On the other hand, if you're the arena type and find yourself a bit lacking in the two key PVP stats, you might want to pick up this stam/resil item from revered with Shattered Sun Offensive. It's pretty useless for PVE, though, so save it for your _____ Gladiator's set piece. 3/10 PVE, 9/10 PVP.
Shoulders
Inscription of the Oracle: Unfortunately for you indecisive types, you need to pick Aldor or Scryer to get these shoulder enhancements. Luckily for you indecisive types, both enchants have the same stats, just in different proportions. Lazy Scryers can pick up this enchant on the cheap at the Scryer bank for 2 Arcane Runes. It doesn't give you any healing stats, but since pally mana regen is entirely dependent on mp/5, it's worth it for the long fights. 7/10 PVE, 5/10 PVP.
Inscription of the Orb: We're actually yoinking this one from the casters. Scryers are big fans of crit rating, and as most healing pallies get mana returned for crit heals and tend to heal single targets, crit rating is important for us. Just make sure you're not neglecting other stats ... 7/10 PVE, 7/10 PVP.
Greater Inscription of the Oracle: When you move up to exalted with either side, however, it's time to ditch the crit in favor of this inscription if you're a PVEer. Crits are too unreliable to be used as a true mana regen method in long boss fights. The healing is a nice addition to the mp/5 on this item. 10/10 PVE, 9/10 PVP.
Greater Inscription of the Orb : But if you're still stuck on crit, you can upgrade your old Orb to this one, which adds dam/heal to spell crit. This is particularly good for healadins who like to throw out some damage in their spare time. 8/10 PVE, 9/10 PVP.
Inscription of Faith: The Aldor favor raw healing over crit or mana regen, and it shows in their item selection. Toss another 29 healing onto the pile for the price of 2 Fel Armaments. 8/10 PVE, 7/10 PVP.
Greater Inscription of Faith: Very similar to the Greater Inscription of the Oracle, but you lose 2mp/5 and gain 11 healing. It's tough to decide which is superior, so make your choice based on the other item rewards for the factions and not these inscriptions. 9/10 PVE, 9/10 PVP.
Greater Inscription of Discipline: Like the orb, except it trades in crit for damage and thus sucks a bit more for pallies. 5/10 PVE, 7/10 PVP.
Cloak
Subtlety: Of all the (relatively bad) healer choices for cloak enchants, this is probably the best. Most paladins don't have too much of a threat problem, considering, y'know, that our healing spells give off half the threat of others, but it can't hurt to have a little bit more. 5/10 PVE, 0/10 PVP.
Major Resistance: This is literally your only choice as a PVPer, unless you really like dodge rating or have a burning desire for more armor. It can help against caster teams (or caster mobs) without much penetration, but prepare to shell out a boatload of cash for the primals. 4/10 PVE, 7/10 PVP.
Chest
Magister's Armor Kit: For those of us who are cheap, the Magister's Armor Kit is a good placeholder to give a bit of extra mana regen when you're looking to upgrade to a better piece of armor. It can't compare to the real enchantments for these four slots, though. 4/10 PVE, 4/10 PVP.
Major Resilience: 15 resilience isn't that much, but it's pretty cheap, and the other PVP options (health? stats? mana?) don't work very well for healadins. 2/10 PVE, 8/10 PVP.
Exceptional Health: Mana is better for PVE. Resilience is better for PVP. And Large Brilliant Shards are expensive. Sure, health is always nice, but unless someone's handing these out for free, pass on it. 3/10 PVE, 5/10 PVP.
Restore Mana Prime: If you're about to argue with me that 100 mana should be here instead, I will note that there are very few dungeons, arenas, battlegrounds, or raid encounters that last less than two minutes. This is cheap and indispensable for PVE and (slightly less so) for PVP. 10/10 PVE, 8/10 PVP.
Bracers
Major Intellect: There are a lot of good choices for bracer enchants. Of the top four, this is probably the least useful. Int is nice, and this is inexpensive, but when you have mp/5 and healing itself as options, there's no point in going for this one. 6/10 PVE, 6/10 PVP.
Fortitude: Stam, stam, stam -- how PVPers love you. But stam is relatively cheap in TBC, and it's a lot harder to get some good healing and mp/5 options. Even PVPers might want to consider the other enchants, particularly considering the cost of the mats here. 4/10 PVE, 7/10 PVP.
Restore Mana Prime: 6mp/5 yet again. This is slightly more valuable in PVE, where paladins need to stack mp/5 for long fights where the tank's taking severe damage. It's really a tossup between this and healing, though, so consider what you need the most. 9/10 PVE, 8/10 PVP.
Superior Healing: 30 heal is a lot to put on an item with as small a stat budget as bracers. This is one of the best bang for your bucks in the game, particularly if you're an herbalist and are swimming in Primal Lifes. 9/10 PVE, 9/10 PVP.
Stay tuned for the next installment, where we'll take care of hand, leg, foot, weapon and shield enchants, and also do a quick overview of healing gems. Disagree with the ratings? Explain why in the comments!
Filed under: (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It, Items, Guides, Enchants
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Gnorlin Apr 2nd 2008 11:39AM
You might as well get Stealweave on your cloak for all the good Subtlety will do. I don't even bother getting my Paladin's cloaks enchanted.
ninjasuperspy Apr 2nd 2008 12:26PM
Same here. If be.imba didn't complain at me, then I wouldn't bother either. My kingdom for a decent spellcaster/healer cloak enchant. Something like spell haste. Would that be TOO incredible? It would make the cloak slot more than a "more mp5 or healing" slot. If spell haste would be over the top, how about crit?
jaxson_bateman Apr 2nd 2008 12:41PM
Yeah, on the topic of subtlety to cloak - it can actually be detrimental to you, depending on your playstyle.
Example - in an encounter like Vashj I'll have RF so that that adds aggro to me over other healers. They have salv, I have RF - basically, I'm trying to increase the threat gap over them as much as possible, and subtlety definitely doesn't help do that.
Personally, I go with armor as its pretty cheap and comes slightly in handy if the mobs ever actually get to me before a tank. ^^
ninjasuperspy Apr 2nd 2008 1:30PM
I hadn't actually thought of that. I guess that shows how seldom I raid.
Dakira Apr 2nd 2008 1:52PM
How much to do you use RF while raiding?
jaxson_bateman Apr 2nd 2008 1:58PM
Actually, more often than you'd think. I've got a cookie-cutteresque build of 42/19, and as such have 3 points in Imp RF - that is, increasing that effect of RF's threat modifier, but also reducing damage coming in by 6%.
For fights where I need to out-threat other people or healers (like the Vashj example above - another example is Kael, where I liked to have healing-aggro on the phoenixs before the druid picked them up), having RF on is important. For fights where reducing incoming damage is important and they aren't heal-threat sensitive (for example, Gorefiend and Bloodboil), the reduced damage is nifty.
It's hardly necessary, but it's a nifty little buff, be it its threat modifier or damage reduction. =)
Dakira Apr 2nd 2008 2:09PM
Cool.. I'm not at that stage of endgame, but when I suggested using it on Curator to ensure I was second on the aggro list to take the "hateful bolt" I was pretty much laughed at.
I'll be trying it out a little more in various situations after reading your post.
Thanx!
Green Armadillo Apr 2nd 2008 2:20PM
If you really aren't tanking very much, the situation where you need to tank adds is one where you can swap out your regular cloak for something that doesn't have subtlety on it. Whether you're getting any milage out of the enchant normally (usually it's the DPS, not the healers, who are pushing the aggro envelope) is a separate question, but if you would benefit from it normally I don't think that one limited situation justifies avoiding it on your everyday gear.
That point aside, DPS casters and healadins both have issues with the cloak enchant. My mage has spell penetration because it's the least useless to mages (still pretty useless, I'm debating switching to armor), but you could make the argument for dodge rating, steelweave, or even agility instead on a Pally. Tanks, melee, and hunters get useful back enchants but everyone else is pretty much left out in the cold.
kapowaz Apr 2nd 2008 12:57PM
Definitely agree with the above posters; holy paladins are in dire need of a viable cloak enchant. I'm surprised it's still not been addressed given how head/leg enchants were taken care of with the introduction of TBC.
Dakira Apr 2nd 2008 1:39PM
I'm just bored at work...
but since you were mentioning everything above the waist you might have added the ring enchant.
Yes its true due to the amount of body hair some people might think my knuckles scrape on the ground but I'd like to assure everyone that in the interest of keeping wowinsider out of the gutter, I do like to keep my hands above the waist.
Boy! That should open me up to all kinds of comments.
But seriously if your like me and a holy paladin who happens to be an enchanter throw the healing ring enchant on your fingers, its cheap enough even if you don't plan on keeping your rings that long!
Rastas Apr 8th 2008 3:03AM
My pally is an enchanter, and I agree, it would have been useful to mention the ring-enchants, even though they're enchanter-only.
Otherwise, a good article, and I'm waiting for the rest of it (as boots being my trouble-zone for the moment).
Argent Apr 2nd 2008 1:40PM
"Crits are too unreliable to be used as a true mana regen method in long boss fights."
my eyes glazed over right there and then. on long boss fights, the mana i get back from illumination is nearly on par what i get from mp/5. and on the (many) short boss fights blizz sprinkled into BT and beyond, having better burst healing potential is a very, very helpful asset.
the enchant is kinda crummy because it gimps your +healing a bit, but other wise, i'd happily stack +crit over mp/5 in every slot.
on the chest enchants -- +6 to all stats is a perfectly viable enchant, imo.
Dakira Apr 2nd 2008 1:43PM
+ Anything to all stats are always good enchants for any class/spec.
I usually put these on my leveling alts since it essentially makes them a few levels higher than they really are.
Swarfy Apr 2nd 2008 1:50PM
Yep, Agreed whole heartedly. +6 stats to chest, and I've went heavy on +crit for mine. And with the changes in 2.4 'the more intel you have the higher your regen' I'm over 250 mana/5. And when i get into a good pot rotation I don't think I've ever ran out of mana...
bloodlight Apr 2nd 2008 5:21PM
Crits unreliable on boss fights? Long fights are were they average out and is were they are most reliable. A good balance of MP5 (around 60), high crit chance (27-30%) and the meta gem with chance for 300 mana on cast balance out to a very good constant stream of mana through the entire fight.
LilRio Apr 2nd 2008 8:14PM
Haha, wow... that's me in that pic! I feel famous! Aw man I'm so drunk..
Yeah that was with a Tank build actually, full spell damage gear though, like a shockadin.
ScytheNoire Apr 2nd 2008 11:11PM
why not just go to wow-loot and use their listing for your paladin, or whatever other class/spec you play. wow-loot has it all.
Holypvpaladin Apr 30th 2008 2:13AM
have a holy paladin for pvp/arena and I don't agree with the author in some of the ratings. In arena a holy paladin need to use Holy Light a lot and paladins don't possess a good mana regeneration, for that reason and the multiples ways of lose mana in the hands of the enemy (mana burn, viper sting, drain mana) the paladin need a good mana pool. For that reason and in my experience a holy paladin needs more intellect (mana) than healing bonus and of course a good amount of spell crit.