The Light and How to Swing It: Illuminating holy paladin stats
by Chase Christian 
Apr 10th 2011 at 4:00PM
Intellect has been our best stat for quite some time, and Cataclysm has only reinforced that. We get spellpower, mana, and critical strike chance from every point of intellect, which makes it valuable for every aspect of holy paladin play. We want to gem for intellect, enchant for intellect, use intellect consumables like Severed Sagefish Head and the Flask of the Draconic Mind. All of our spells scale off of spellpower, which makes it an amazing throughput stat. The fact that it gives us critical strike rating is just icing on the cake.
Divine Plea's mana regeneration scales off of our maximum mana, and so stacking intellect gives us both mana at the start of the fight and then additional mana every time we use Divine Plea. My only advice is to be sure to use all plate gear, as we receive a 5% intellect bonus when wearing all plate. Mail caster gear may seem attractive, but the intellect loss isn't worth it. Intellect is designed to be our best stat, and that's why we can find it on all of our gear. Even if you hated intellect, you can't get rid of it. The real gearing decisions come down to choices between the secondary stats.
How far critical strike has fallen
At one point in early Wrath, critical strike rating was one of the most powerful stats for a holy paladin. Illumination was our key mana regeneration mechanic, and stacking crit was a great way to boost both throughput and longevity. I remember how excited I was when I won the roll on a Soul of the Dead, the ultimate mana regeneration trinket. Glyph of Holy Light also worked well with critical heals, as both the initial heal and the subsequent splash could be critical strikes. Critical strike was an amazing holy paladin stat, and we actively sought it out on gear.
Critical strike chance is now our worst stat. Its decline was slow but definite. The disabling of crit on Glyph of Holy Light's splash was the beginning, while the gutting (and eventual removal) of Illumination was the end. Without Illumination giving us back mana on critical heals, crit's only value comes from its boost to our throughput. It doesn't boost our throughput as much as haste does, and it provides no longevity improvements. Whenever you start ordering stats, there's always going to be a stat is the worst. Unfortunately for crit, it finds itself at the bottom of our list. Unfortunately for us, we find it on three pieces of our current tier set.
Spirit is the key to longevity
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. As critical strike's value has hit rock bottom in Cataclysm, spirit's stock has skyrocketed. Meditation, one of our holy tree bonuses, allows us to regenerate our mana via spirit while in combat. Previously, spirit would literally give us zero mana since we were constantly casting heals. Since mana per 5 was removed, spirit is really the only regeneration stat in the game. If you are on a fight that requires a lot of healing, spirit is the secondary stat you want to bolster your longevity. Spirit even allows us to regain more mana via Judging when Seal of Insight is active, as Enlightened Judgements lets spirit help us hit more often.
I like to think of Divine Light as the healer version of Life Tap. Instead of trading health for mana, we can spend extra mana to drop bigger heals. Because we're able to change our throughput by adjusting our mana usage, spirit has the secondary effect of boosting our throughput, but only when we want it to. Having more mana gives us more options, and since we're never at risk of not having enough throughput due to our flexible healing models, I find myself preferring spirit over all other stats.
Haste is the throughput stat of choice
Holy paladins previously had essentially three heals: Holy Light, Flash of Light, and Holy Shock. Haste obviously affected all three of these heals by lowering their cast time and reducing the global cooldown, and so it was easy to see why it was so valuable for us. Haste continues its reign at the top of the throughput list. Holy Radiance actually scales incredibly well with haste, just at defined breakpoints.
Our healing spells have had their cast times increased in Cataclysm, and haste helps us restore some of the reactivity that we lost from Wrath's near-GCD cast times. If I could only have two stats, I'd pick haste and spirit. Haste lets you use your spells more often, while spirit lets you keep casting them. The combination is currently unbeatable.
Mastery isn't great, but improving
While I've talked about our current mastery bonus, Illuminated Healing, Blizzard has been consistently buffing it on the patch 4.1 PTR. The scaling of mastery rating was improved by 20%, and the duration of the absorption bubbles was nearly doubled. I plan on trying out a mastery-based gear setup once patch 4.1 makes it to live servers, if only to see how effective it can be. Blizzard is clearly dedicated to making mastery desirable for us, and so I'm interested in seeing how potent Illuminated Healing will be after the changes.
With haste and spirit easily winning the secondary stat war, we will be primarily reforging out of crit and mastery. I suggest checking out the Holy Radiance haste chart and seeing if you're near a haste breakpoint, then reforging to haste if you can score an extra tick. You're not going to be able to find haste/spirit pieces for every slot; there's simply not enough healing plate gear out there. I simply reforge to haste or spirit, whichever happens to be missing from the gear.
The Light and How to Swing It: Holy helps holy paladins become the powerful healers we're destined to be. Learn the ropes in Cataclysm 101 for holy paladins, study the new balance between intellect and spirit, and learn how to level your new Sunwalker. Tanking is a job, DPS is a craft -- but healing is truly an art.
Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
apatheticurge Apr 10th 2011 4:21PM
Chase Christian, you rock my holy paladin socks.
Sky Apr 10th 2011 7:46PM
Best class writer in WoWInsider if I'm completely honest with you
cody.w.matal Apr 10th 2011 4:38PM
You are literally the reason that I didn't drop holy like a rock and replace it with prot like I had in wrath..... Much love, brother, much love.
Cody Apr 10th 2011 4:40PM
If they rolled a portion of the old Illumination effect into our mastery, that could go a long way to making it a lot more attractive.
If consecutive heals would cause a stacking effect, that would go a long way to making it more attractive.
If they made it drop a HoT once it was broken, that would go be kind of nifty.
Kaille Apr 10th 2011 4:57PM
Can someone explain the comment about crit having no effect on longevity? A crit is a extra healing for the same amount of mana, and overhealing is relatively rare in cataclysm.
cyanea85 Apr 10th 2011 5:18PM
I think it comes down to the fact that Crit, even if you stack it, is still not a guarantee. You could throw all your reforging into Crit, which MIGHT give you extra healing every now and again.
Or you could do Haste. You won't crit as much, but you can heal more because you can heal faster.
Sky Apr 10th 2011 5:52PM
Comes down to the fact that healers want consistency not RNG factors like crit heals. Every good healer will choose getting their spell to finish 1% faster rather than having their spell heal for more 1% of the time. Consistency is key which is why Haste will always trump crit for healers.
thebitterfig Apr 10th 2011 10:32PM
While the RNG bit is true, and likely a reason why crit isn't the best stacking stat, they don't answer the question.
From any way I think about it, crit indeed does make the average heal bigger, and the healing-per-mana does increase. It isn't reliable, and the effect is significantly smaller than if some form of Illumination was still in place.
Kaille Apr 11th 2011 2:34PM
The RNG is why crit is a bad stat for throughput. When you need HPS you need HPS, not a chance of HPS.
But what matters for longevity is whether you saved mana over the course of time before you go oom. Over a whole mana pool, you can count on having crits.
Longevity helps throughput because you can use your more expensive spells more often, and throughput helps longevity because your cheap heals are more likely to get you through. This is why people like haste even though it is a stat that is essentially about throwing your mana at people faster. Crit seems to be a longevity stat that might also cause you to luck out and get some throughput.
I have seen lots of places state that one stat or the other is better, but none of them with any serious backup. It's a harder thing to do math on than most number related things in the game. I had hoped there was some background on this relatively extreme statement that I had missed.
Diatenium Apr 10th 2011 5:07PM
I honestly value crit more than I do mastery, at the very least crit affects all of our heals, even obscure ones like enlightened judgement and protector of the innocent, master affects neither these nor holy radiance or our 5-minute cooldown Guardian.
Additionally, crit maintains conviction (Harder now that it won't work off of holy radiance) and helps to proc Infusion of Light.
I was actually really annoyed when the ptr had initially shown that just the duration had been increased, of which only seems foolish to trumpet as a buff. Yes, mastery is wasted when the buff falls off before the person takes damage, but you waste considerably more of your mastery healing your target more than once before they take said damage, since every application is spent just resetting the duration or overwriting the old buff.
So yeah, I'm pretty much parroting the common "Mastery needs to stack and work off all our heals" line, but I agree with it.
silentk Apr 10th 2011 6:43PM
I agree completely, a heal Crit is far more effective than Mastery shields which have the potential to be unused per cast. If I cast 5 heals and none crit, I have 4 shield refresh and a bubble at best, 5 unused absorbs at worst. If I cast 5 heals and 2 of them crit, I get extra throughput.
It may be that Mastery is slightly more useful in a 25 man setting where you have several tank targets to spread your healing across. It may also be that in a 25 raid with a larger healing team there would be less value from a 150% crit heal.
But I can say for sure that in the heroic 10 man raids, the 150% Crit-heal is FAR more valuable to me. Especially on fights where I two-heal with our druid.
I wish that either the tier gloves or chest had some haste on it, would make wearing the 4 pieces of tier much more attractive, but in 4.1 it will be worth the stat change just for the bonus.
jfofla Apr 10th 2011 5:39PM
Since start of Cata I have been Reforging Mastery away.
Now I am off to the Reforger to change the discarded stat to Crit!
Gemming Question. I Gem all intell regardless of bonus. Except I need two Yellow Gems for my Meta.
Is pure Haste a good option for the two Yellow Gems or would you do something different?
silentk Apr 10th 2011 6:43PM
Reckless for your two yellows. 20 int 20 haste. :)
benbettis Apr 11th 2011 11:50AM
Don't reforge so fast!
Lots of paladins still believe crit to be ever so slightly better than mastery (at least until 4.1 mind you), though both are bad.
wow.matal Apr 10th 2011 6:06PM
I'd rather see some form of HoT proc instead of a shield, honestly :\
Vxar Apr 10th 2011 6:11PM
Jfofla --
I think most Holy Pallies will agree to use Reckless (I think is the name anyways), its +20int +20 haste, for those sockets. Also, be careful about what you gem when throwing away the bonus. In some cases, by doing two int gems, if the socket bonus is also +20 int, you'd be better off with +40 int and +20int/haste, since you'd gain the same amount of hit plus an additional 20 haste.
jfofla Apr 10th 2011 8:13PM
Thanks for the responses!
wow.matal Apr 10th 2011 6:40PM
Wow, I try and use both of my emails and NEITHER of them are using the name I set up.... :|
Case Apr 11th 2011 4:44AM
My just wondering what level of crit every shoots for with the current gear ilvl's; as someone has already mentioned, keeping a high level of 3-stack conviction uptime is essential, and a 1.5sec cast time reduction to DL is fantastic!
I'm sitting on 15.5% crit, and during a normal Halfus fight I had 99% conviction uptime and 15 infusion of light procs from 21 HSs (66%ish). So what I'm wondering is where the sweet spot is crit-wise? Anyone done the numbers? (I imagine I'm edging a little high).
I notice Diamondtear from a couple of articles back is sitting on 15.7%...
Hpallyftw Apr 11th 2011 8:49AM
Are you people serious? I read this and thought "ok when is he going to say something we haven't all known for months?". The stat ordering is really old news and the only thing remotely new is about the mastery changes, and instead of some theorcrafting or even analysis he just says "when this is live I'll check it out."
If you have nothing to say, don't write a column .
Ps downrate away - I know it's never ok to say anything negative even if it's the obvious truth.