The Light and How to Swing It: The best patch 4.3 gear for your holy paladin
by Chase Christian 
Dec 4th 2011 at 8:00PM
The itemization team at Blizzard has been especially stingy when it comes to holy paladin drops in Dragon Soul. While there were hundreds of items added in patch 4.3, very few of them are ideal for holy paladins. We're used to this sort of treatment though, as we're the only special snowflake spec that requires its own set of gear. No other class wants to wear intellect plate, and there's nothing more frustrating for a raid group than seeing the same plate healing gloves drop every single week. A few character slots have a limited number of items available, but there's an upgrade for every single piece of gear you have today.
Between blacksmiths, the valor points vendor, and Dragon Soul bosses, there are still plenty of gear for us to lust after. There are also new epic gems available from the Dragon Soul bosses that we can adorn our gear with, making us more powerful than ever. Our overall gearing strategy hasn't changed much since the last patch, although mastery rating is a bit better due to the new design of Holy Radiance. I am favoring spirit as the best secondary stat, with haste close behind. Critical strike rating and mastery rating are a toss-up; you can pick your favorite.
The limited collection
For a couple slots on your holy paladin, you'll only have one upgrade option. Our shoulders are a perfect example of this, as the tier piece Mantle of Radiant Glory is literally the only choice. Luckily, this item has two red slots with an intellect bonus and is itemized for haste and spirit, so we don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth. Note that all tier pieces are boss drops now, so you won't be able to buy any from valor points.
We're in a similar boat with our cloak slot, as the Woundlicker Cover is the only healing cloak available. Again, it's itemized well, so I'm not complaining. The Woundlicker Cover is available for just 1,250 valor points, and so I'd suggest this for your first valor points purchase. You won't find a better item in the raid, and since all of our tier pieces come from Dragon Soul, it's not like you're delaying your set bonuses.
For our off-hand, there's only one caster shield right now, the Timepiece of the Bronze Flight. While it looks pretty awesome and is itemized perfectly, there are other options. The Ledger of Revolting Rituals is similarly itemized but tosses in a bonus socket, which lets us boost our intellect even further. The catch is that it's an off-hand item, so the other casters will be after this too. I am going to be passing the off-hand option to any priests or druids that want it first, but I plan to eventually upgrade to the Ledger at some point. There's also a decent Dragonfire Orb off-hand if you can't get either of the other two to drop for you.
Cherry-picking tier gear
We have two helm options, so we can choose between the Glowing Wings of Hope and the Headguard of Radiant Glory tier helm. Neither has a significant leg up on the other in terms of stats, which has me favoring the tier piece, since it helps move us toward our two-piece bonus. I know that some paladins favor crit over mastery and vice versa, but I simply don't put much stock into either argument. We're already guaranteed to use our tier shoulders, and so I expect every holy paladin will achieve the two-piece bonus via helm and shoulders, at the least.
While there are again two chest pieces available for us, we'll all be using our tier chest, the Breastplate of Radiant Glory. Perfect itemization and tons of sockets have this chest rocking its competition. Between the tier helm, shoulders, and chest that we'll be wearing, it becomes easy to transition into a fourth piece to pick up the huge Holy Radiance boost via the four-piece bonus.
We're faced with tough choices for our last two tier slots. There are perfectly itemized options for both our gloves and pants, but neither one is our tier piece. I am probably going to be using the Greaves of Radiant Glory, our tier pants, whenever our four-piece bonus is necessary. My normal pants will be the crafted Pyrium Legplates of Purified Evil, which are just awesome. My full-time gloves will be the Gauntlets of the Golden Thorn, due to their higher item level. If we were to swap in our tier gloves for the four-piece bonus instead of swapping in our pants, we'd be dropping several ilevels by taking off these ilevel 403 gloves.
Follow your nose ... to the haste
Most of our gear already sports spirit on it, so we're choosing between haste, crit, and mastery. When it comes to the remaining item slots, I am always looking for the haste option. An example would be the Petrified Fungal Heart and the Threadlinked Chain. While there are two necklaces available, I'm going to be leaning heavily toward the Heart and its haste, and so I won't spend my valor points on a necklace that's not my favorite.
I will be waiting for the Dragonfracture Belt rather than buying the Blinding Girdle of Truth, but I'll gladly spend my valor points (or an alt's valor points, since these are BoE) on the Silver Sabatons of Fury over the Pillarfoot Greaves. Our crafted option for bracers actually beats both the valor point and boss bracers, and by a large margin. Get yourself some Soul Redeemer Bracers crafted immediately, as two red sockets are too precious to pass up.
My favorite ring is clearly the Signet of Suturing, haste is always on the top of my list. At that point, it's a tie between the Band of Reconstruction and the Ring of the Riven. I'll probably settle on the Band of Reconstruction, since spirit items should go to healers first while non-spirit items go to the DPS casters. We don't have to make that distinction for our relics though, since they're both from the valor points vendor. You can pick either the Lightning Spirit in a Bottle or the Mindbender Lens, nobody will mind. I will probably end up flipping a coin here.
Trinket time
There's a lot of interesting trinket options available this tier, with a variety of stats and procs. It all comes down to what you're focusing on. If you're close to reaching a major Holy Radiance haste breakpoint, then you will love the Bottled Wishes trinket with all of its haste, available for just valor points. I don't like the other valor point trinket, the Reflection of the Light, as I feel that it's inferior to nearly every other option. If you are really serious about regeneration, then the Heart of the Unliving is the better regeneration trinket in every way. The Will of Unbinding might look hot, but since it only procs from damaging spells, we probably won't be able to keep the intellect bonus active. I'll personally be gunning for the Windward Heart and the Seal of the Seven Signs, as I'm a sucker for intellect and useful procs on my trinkets.
Not a legendary, but close enough
When we start raiding Dragon Soul, we're likely to see the Vagaries of Time mace along the way. It's not a bad mace, but it's also not our final goal. We're shooting for the Maw of the Dragonlord, which drops from the final boss of the raid. While it's missing its secondary stats in favor of a proc, what a glorious proc it is. A healing weapon that has a built-in Light of Dawn proc? I'll take it!
The Light and How to Swing It: Holy helps holy paladins become the powerful healers we're destined to be. Find out just how masterful mastery healing can be, gear up with the latest gear, and learn how to PvP as a holy paladin.
Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
matthias2479 Dec 4th 2011 8:07PM
Speak for yourself, S11 pvp gear actually imo looks far better than judgement. By a lot.
Katherine Dec 5th 2011 1:51PM
Speak for yourself, tier 2 is super ugly. I'm gonna be wearing T13 (for both specs) as soon as I get some to drop (should really get off my butt and into the raid finder). Need to find some boots to go with it I suppose.
WaterRouge Dec 4th 2011 8:28PM
Wrathful pally gear here! Looks awesome on a Tauren.
Emophia Dec 5th 2011 5:53PM
Same, on dreinie fem.
But God damn, wearing that in the Well of Eternity made me want Nelf Pallies so much.
Fem nelves look amazing in pally plate.
Remotepall Dec 4th 2011 9:10PM
I have found with my current rotation have become almost mana nutural since the "nerf". I can see that similar to 4.2 we are going to be relying on some of the crafted bs patterns for most of the patch due to DS's low drop rates. Gunna try and roll a little more mastery in this patch and see how it goes, ATM can buff a full raid team to 50k absorb before boss pull.
Bapo Dec 4th 2011 10:24PM
I'm running with a T1 set, I would love to run around with the classic pvp weapons, but unfortunately I cannot (started at the end of vanilla, I made Private), so I'm not sure what to have my weapons be yet :(
Edymnion Dec 4th 2011 11:23PM
I'm currently tanking in the look-a-like blue DK armor while putting together the blue and gold set or my heals spec.
I've already been whispered by one person asking how I managed to equip a shield as a DK, I love it.
Discolando Dec 4th 2011 11:46PM
Uh, sorry, but I'll be rocking my original Lightforge set for quite a while!
Malix Dec 5th 2011 1:29AM
Am I the only pally that hates judgment gear? I prefer T6 or T8. Or the current PVP set.
rodmin Dec 5th 2011 4:51AM
Nice gear checklist.
But speaking of haste, which were the haste caps for Holy Radiance procs again?
Possum Dec 5th 2011 6:34AM
I haven't seen anyone in Judgement yet..
Mattimus Dec 5th 2011 9:42AM
I transmogged into Judgement, but I've also seen a TON more people using Lightbringer than Judgement.
I think a lot of people are so afraid of looking like others that they're shunning Judgement, so hardly anyone is actually wearing it even as they stare at the set sitting in their Void Bank with sad, watery eyes...
Hal Dec 5th 2011 7:50AM
I'll admit, I mogged into my Blessed Gear of Undead Slaying.
I'm not holy, but I've found the new Holy Radiance to actually be useful still. The previous incarnation was useful because you could just tap it and forget about it, getting some incidental healing going. The catch was that it was only really useful if you could stack with the rest of the raid.
In the new incarnation, while it has a cast time, I've found it very useful during fights where I'm not on a boss constantly. For example, during Widow's Kiss on Beth'tilac, I can toss a few of these on the raid to help out with the healing. During Rhyolith, I threw a few of these on the melee as well.
cjjh2000 Dec 5th 2011 11:34AM
I'm guessing I'm the only one that, when I get new gear, I'm making it Tier 12? Tis my favourite set of them all.
matticus Dec 5th 2011 11:54AM
No self-respecting Blood Knight should be using anything other than a Blood Knight replica set.
musicchan Dec 6th 2011 11:04PM
I haven't transmoged anything on my pally except his shield. Red Dragonscale Protector all the way!
Diatenium Dec 8th 2011 4:40PM
Certainly late to the party here.
I should point out that the 4-set bonus seems mandatory for hard-mode raiding, given that 80% of all damage throughout the entire encounter is healed through aoe-healing.
Personally, I feel crit overtakes mastery because crit works well with holy radiance--the heals aren't so large that they'll be overhealing all that much, but the fact that holy radiance procs mastery is enough to keep the stat from completely falling behind.
Some people on EJ are speculating that the "3% additional crit amount" overtakes our old meta gem for the same reason as I stated in the last paragraph, particularly since they changed the gems to be "Crit effect" instead of "Crit damage".