Kicking back and brainstorming a new post today, I decided that I wanted to explore something that has been eating away at my soul for some time now. Now those of you who know Porkchop, (that’s me) know that I am not a huge number cruncher. In fact words like coefficient and numbers as big as thirty-seven have been known to make me stare into space cringe and grind my teeth. So I am going to try not to wade too deep in the muck so to speak. I have been worried about my personal potential as a raid healer and my class’s ability to take on the role. So I would like to discuss for you, my holy paladin readers, why and how we are going to make phenomenal raid healers come lvl 85 in Cataclysm.
I know there are a lot of players out there who just don’t think paladins should raid heal. They would rather us forever be pigeon holed as solely tank healers but I have seen the light. In the days before LoD and WoG I had been raid healing 6/12 in ICC with two healers (myself and a disc priest).
Even with the changes, most of our healing as raid healers is going to come in the form of single target heals. The big difference is now we finally have a couple raid wide heal bombs, the likes of which I always cursed Blizz for not having when trying to keep everyone alive during Stinky’s Decimate. Don’t get too caught up on the long CDs that come with them. Heal bombs are going to be used very situationally and most of the time HoPo is going to be better spent on WoG over LoD.
Juggling procs and cds perfectly is not going to make or break a fight but it is going to make a huge difference in one’s ability be an efficient raid healer. The three main Procs we are going to want to track are Eternal Glory, Infusion of Light and Daybreak. I am using Procwatch to track these but I know a lot of people really like Power Auras as well.
Procs are not the only thing you should expect to be juggling. Believe it or not you’re going to want to keep your Beacon going around as well. Glyph of Beacon of Light will be essential tossing around this buff like a gnome at a keg party. Constant beaconing will be a good habit because of the quick holy power you can generate with three points in Tower of Radiance. Priority will go to a dps or healer who take extra damage from a debuff like Saurfang’s Mark of the Fallen Champion or someone who you know has trouble staying out of the fire. Other glyphs you’re going to need as a raid healer are Glyph of Light of Dawn, Glyph of Cleansing and Glyph of the Long Word, really only if you want a HoT effect on WoG.
Let’s not forget we have hands. Myself personally I almost never used these spells while spamming FoL on tanks during WotLK. HoP your ranged dps if they’re taking damage (they can continue to pew pew while bubbled). HoS on melee in conjunction with our personal pally bubble. And be generous with HoF. Our hands will lend themselves to saving mana and mana conservation is going to be important when raiding in Cataclysm.
Paladins may not have the ability to just spam AoE heals like PoH/CoH or Chain Heal but that should not stop us from raid healing. We now have two spells in our toolkit that can handle simultaneous raid wide damage. We also have a variety of single target heals and defensive cds at our disposal. I want to encourage my brother and sister pallies to use what Blizz has given us to show the player base that we can handle our own as raid healers. Challenge yourself and have fun.
[…] Paladin Raid Healing – Porkchop (great name, right?) has an argument for paladins being just as capable in the raid healing department in any other class – especially come Cataclysm. He covers the holy paladin toolkit from hands to the shiny new AoE holy paladin spells and gives examples of how they can be used. Being completely honest here, holy paladin is my least played healer class so I’d be really interested to know if you agree with Porkchop or are inspired by his enthusiasm to the role. I’m not saying he’s wrong, I just don’t know as I lack the expertise for this class – what do you think? […]