Cataclysm Holy paladin Healing Guide

Cataclysm is finally here! Healing isn't just wack-a-mole anymore, Healing will get you into a group lickity splits but beware it is not so much of a cake walk! Healing on a pally in particular has changed a great deal so read more for the key points. Cata only being out for a month leaves everyone especially PUGS under geared and at the minimum requirement to do heroics. I highly recommend doing the 85 dungeons on normal. You learn the fights and get decent gear. The minimum Item level needed is 329 for heroics and is an average of all your best gear even the stuff in your bag. This is a good and a bad thing good for you to get in there to get lootz but I have noticed a lot of scubs role tank and have good ilevel but its all dps gear and they get spanked. All the fights now are challenging and require good timing on cool-downs but its simple stuff like move out of this and interrupt that. Make sure you get your Tabards and start getting rep.Guardians of Hyjal till revered for helm enchant. Tharazane to exalted for best shoulder enchant. With running heroics and doing the dailies this doesn't take nearly as long as previous rep grinds.

So paladins had their whole healing aspect changed. First is a big difference we use SPIRIT! Its actually a great stat because we cannot non stop spam heals anymore. Pallys do not get mana back on crit and Divine plea was nerfed to 10% so stack your spirit or you and your group are 6ft under. Intellect is the dominant stat for sure, it offers all your spell power, except of your weapon, Critical strike rating, bigger heals and shock crits proc a big haste buff for the bigger heals. Intellect also of course make your mana pool bigger, which is your healer man hood and you are judged by it. As far as secondary stats, the ones you can reforge, Crit>mastery>haste. I liked the sound of mastery and stacked it but does not work as well as the crit and haste is bad you need to much and get too little.

So throw away any habits from previous pally healing because you will be Out of mana faster than two shakes of a Persian kitten's whiskers. Flash heal the heal we spammed time and time again is now reflects the priest quick heal, Quick cast big heal and lots of mana. Holy light is now the "filler". Still takes the same time to cast but is a moderate heal. Divine light is our new big heal, costing alot of mana and doing big heals. Pallys now have a new resource called holy power. You can have a max of three holy power and they generate by healing and if specd into it taking damage. When healing you have 2 moves you use and you want to when you get three holy power because they cost no mana. Word of glory is the single target heal does more healing per holy power. The second is light of dawn. Light of dawn is my favorite probaly because its our aoe heal and i like seeing big green numbers fly around my screen. Light of dawn heals 5 of the lowest targets in a 30 yard frontal cone. This makes pugging real interesting because not everyone cares about the poor pally healer who needs you to kinda stand in a certain spot for more efficient healing. A time will come eventually when people will do this 2nd nature it is new after all.

So the way healing goes with a pally is most commonly holy shock every time because crits give you reduced divine light and holy light casting time. Then at 3 holy power either world of glory the tank if hes the only one taking damage or light of dawn for aoe. I have been getting in the habit of using light of dawn every time because it still heals for a good amount and with mastery it hits everyone with a shield to absorb any future damage.

Changing divine illumination also nerfs our mana efficiency. Used to reduce mana cost of spells by 50% for like 20secs now its really good but id prefer the old way it gives you 20% crit and haste for 30sec 40 with glyph. All of our Cool downs are very powerful so I recommend using one at a time, you never know whats going to happen next.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Best-Holy-pally-PvE-spec-cataclysm