Classic Holy Paladin PvE Vanilla guide
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You may well have noticed that competent guides for Wow Vanilla have become hard to find! YourGamingDude got your back and i am here to help you with your Holy Paladin PVE guide classic
I have raided with the paladin class in retail from release in 2005 through the wotlk expansion. I have made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot. I feel and i know that I can offer some good quality guidance on how to play paladin! However, if I got something wrong or left something out, please comment below and I'll update the guide with your suggestion.
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A wow Paladin's Role in PVE (Player versus Environment)
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Paladin role as DPS
A paladin in bis nax/aq 40 dps gear can put out about the same DPS as a well played wow warrior or rogue in ZG/AQ epics and blues. So why would a raid want to bring a paladin when they can just gear up a warrior or rogue instead?
Additionally, there is no reason in adding a Nightfall paladin to your raid to boost the magic DPS as it severly gimps the pally's already just mediocre DPS and, since every fight does not require a full bunch of tanks, there is usually a protection warrior who is already sitting out for the fight who can just swing a Nightfall to boost magic DPS in raid.
Paladin as Tank
The pally have no taunt, emergency talents like "last stand", gearing options and mana problems make the paladin an inferior tank compared with a warrior. Some fights cannot be tanked without taunt as the fight mechanics is just asking it. Paladins do perfect job in AOE tanking trash mobs, however, this is not a enough to devote a raid slot to one just for this.
I have put together an admirable tank and dps set by taking items from AQ 40 and Nax when no one else wants them. I enjoy tanking and dps'ing vanilla pre-raid content and even Zul'gurub and Temple of Ahn'Qiraj 20. It is possible to be good in these roles, but you must realize this is not enough and then there are better class options for DPS and Tanking.
Holy is the only optimal spec in vanilla classic wow. If you want to go dps or tank in vanilla raid content, you should reroll now and save yourself the long term suffering and frustration.
So why paladin healers excel at over other healing classes like priests?
Paladins excel at mana efficiency. Paladins can continue delivering heals while priests and druids are starting to complain and cry about OOM. For this reason, IMO that they are most valuable when your raid or guild is learning new content and don't have the fight mechanics quite figured out yet. Learning fights often carry on for much longer than they need to so you need way more heals.
The Stats to Prioritize as Holy Paladin in Classic wow
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Core Stats: Intellect and +healing
Secondary Stats: Spell Crit and Mana per 5 seconds
Your most important priority is to never ever run out of mana because then you are completely useless.
If you are running out of mana, then you need more Intelect, Spell Crit and Mp5 (Mana per 5 seconds). If you don't have problems with mana, then you can get more +healing.
I would recommend you to keep around 9000+ mana pool with full buffs. I found that after I finished Molten Core, I started looking for more +heal items.
Plain Intellect is simple and good choice because it gives you more total mana and bigger spell crit.
I don't know why but i often see paladins is prioritizing Spirit instead intellect like he is priest or druid. The stat is almost useless for paladins so don't make this mistake.
Healing and rotation
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Spam Flash of Light rank 4 or 6 over and over and over. Spam this key like a madman.
Holy Light rank 6 or 9 is used when people are taking huge amount of damage and smaller heals can't keep up with damage.
Holy Shock is used when I need to cast a heal while moving to other place. Its not so useless as you think!
If you have some time then judge light or wisdom on anything that will take more than a few seconds to kill.
If you encounter big problem you have to use your Lay on Hands spell on the main tank and then drink a mana potion. (Don't be a cheap ass and always bring mana potion!)
Keep an eye on the mages and warlocks. They will need your blessing of protection when they use they AOE spells.
Also ALWAYS keep your mind that you can remove magic, poison and disease debuffs using your cleanse spells.
If you are in the classic tanking group, be careful to stand close enough to the tank so you can cast your Devotion Aura.
Buffing Tips & Tricks
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The buffs that everyone should receive depends on situation. Some people, depending on the fight or their gear score. That is fine! I try to accommodate people within the limits of reason.
With multiple paladins in the raid, you will need to coordinate buffs. Here is some guidance on which ones to give.
Greater Blessing of Kings is usually the most important buff as it increases all stats. All classes benefit from this.
Greater Blessing of Salvation is the second most important buff. it reduces damage and Healing threat and makes it way easier life for the tank to hold mobs aggro. Classes with threat reducing abilities like rogues and hunters don't need this buff so much. But High DPS warlocks especially need it, sometimes over all other buffs so keep that in your mind!
If your raid tells you to buff salvation, you will have to be careful and keep in your mind that in some fights you don't have to buff it on certain classes or people. If your hunter kiting on this fight you don't have to buff hunters. If you have a single warlock AOE tanking mobs or even a raid boss you have to buff all the warlocks and then remove it from the tank warlock using blessing of sacrifice.
The DPS warriors always want salvationbuff, but how can you buff them without also hitting the tanks?
Here is the answer:
Buff the entire class with greater salvation and then remove it from each tank using blessing of sacrifice. There is an addon called "Block Salvation" that will automatically remove it. Encourage your guild tanks to use this add on.
If your raid assigned you as the salvation buffer AND you are running Concentration Aura, you are in the unique position of also being able to help your tank out with blessing of sacrifice. Hit it on your tank with it as often as possible.
Greater Blessing of Wisdom and Greater Blessing of Might are usually assigned to one paladin. Warriors and Rogues get might and everyone else gets wisdom. Warlocks don't need it as much as they lifetap to regain mana. Sometimes, you have a feral druid who wants might. If you have an extra paladin in your group, then also buff druids with might, however it is more important that your healing druids have wisdom buff. But your raid should assign these buffs to a paladin who has put the talent points into improved wisdom and improved might.
Blessing of wisdom also has the unique feature of generating threat in vanilla wow. So, if you are buffing this, be prepared for all loose mobs to head straight to kill you. But if you are kiting mobs, then you will want to be assigned this buff.
Greater Blessing of Light This buff significantly increases your healing. If you are low on paladins in raid, at least try to get this on your tanks.
Greater Blessing of Sanctuary This buff decreases damage taken and increases tank threat by a little bit. This buff is not useless but it is not so important.
Blessing of Sacrifice If your tank is being hit by lots of mobs very quickly then this buff is very welcome. Also i would recommend to run concentration aura while using it to counter spell pushback.
Blessing of Freedom If your tank is rooted, it can be helpful to use this, but I don't find much use for it in pve raiding content. There are more opportunities to use it in 5 man dungeons. Almost useless.
Holy Paladin Talents
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This is the pure healing spec. You can use your last 6 points anywhere you want its up to you!
I personally like running this holy/prot spec so I can also tank in pre-raid content:
Vanilla Paladin Pre-Raid Gear
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If you put together this gear set, none would say no to you!
Sash of Mercy
Hide of The Wild
Hammer of Grace
Mantle of Lost Hope
Gallant's Wristguards
Insightfull Hood
Harmonius Gauntlets
Padre's Trousers
Boots of the Full Moon
Mindtap Talisman x2
Band of Piety
Robes of The Exalted
Tooth of Gnarr
Rosewine Circle
Tome of Divine Right
Libram of Divinity
Classic wow Paladin Enchants
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Head and Legs
Syncretist's Sigil
Lesser Arcanum of Voracity - use this until you can get the ZG enchant
Shoulders
Zandalar Signet of Serenity - requires exalted reputation with ZG
Cape
Enchant Cloak - Subtlety
Chest
Enchant Chest - Greater Stats
Bracer
Enchant Bracer - Greater Intellect
Enchant Bracer - Healing
Weapon
Enchant Weapon - Healing Power
Enchant Weapon - Mighty Intellect
Shield
Nothing good for healing is available. So I put stamina in this slot
Enchant Shield - Greater Stamina
Gloves
Enchant Gloves - Healing Power
Feet
Enchant Boots - Minor Speed
Vanilla Consumables
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These are the consumables I take to every raid no matter what. There are much more consumables you might think to bring, but these seem to give me the most reward for my effort. These all stack unless specifically noted below.
2 Flask of Distilled Wisdom
2 Flask of the Titans
Flasks do not stack, so use wisdom most of the time and then switch to titans if you are having trouble staying alive.
5 Mageblood Potion
10 Greater Dreamless Sleep Potion
Use these over your mana potions if you can take 12 second break during the fight
10 Major Mana Potion
1 Brilliant Mana Oil
5 Dark Rune
These are very expensive to buy. Demonic Runes could also be substituted. The best thing about them is that they do not share a cool down with mana/dreamless pots.
10 Runn Tum Tuber Surprise
Does NOT stack with Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops
10 Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops
10 Rumsey Rum Black Label
5 Greater Fire Protection Potion
5 Greater Nature Protection Potion
5 Greater Frost Protection Potion
5 Greater Shadow Protection Potion
5 Greater Arcane Protection Potion
5 Major Troll's Blood Potion
5 Elixir of Fortitude
Nature Resist Gear for Temple of Ahn'Qiraj
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The advantage of these items is everything (except one of the boe rings) does not depend on random drops, so you can complete the set more predictably.
If you are working with a new 60level, then you may not have the Cenarion Circle, Argent Dawn or Zul'Gurub reputation required for some of these items so you have to look at alternatives.
Almost all this stuff you can get alone, but you will need some help with the pants, head and leg enchants.
Sylvan Crown
Sylvan Shoulders
Sylvan Vest
Gaea's Embrace
Enchant Cloak - Greater Nature Resistance
Nature Mantle of the Dawn
Petrified Band (world drop, boe, you can find it in auction house)
Band of Cenarius (the quest turn in is BOE, expect to pay a lot)
Cenarion Reservist's Legguards (this is a long quest chain where you even need to kill a raid boss to finish it)
Nature's Whisper
Savage Guard Head/Leg Enchants
Core Add Ons
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Here is a link to the add ons I use
Vanilla Paladin Addons
Pally Power - makes buffing easy and helps coordinate buffing between multiple paladins (auto target, range finding, error recovery) IMPORTANT: turn off auto-self cast or this add on won't work
Decursive 1.9.7 - remove debuffs quickly (auto targets, priority list and alerts)
X-Perl by Zek - raid frames for healing
Bear Cast Bar - when you have a little lag, this helps you time your chain casting for faster heals
Big Wigs -Ace2- automatic timers and warnings for boss fights
Wardrobe -AL 1.8.1 - for managing multiple sets of armor, create gear sets and then rapidly switch between them with one click.
Quickheal - useful for raid healing. Configure it to only use "flash of light" in combat.
Cthun Warner - use this to avoid killing other people on the Cthun fight.
Useful Paladin Macros
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Announce your resurrection target /say rezing %t /cast redemption
Cast your biggest holy shock /cast Divine Favor /script SpellStopCasting() /cast Holy Shock
Once you pick up the mana saving Libram of Grace from AQ 40, you will want to use these macros: You will need the "Super Macro" addon. I'm using Super Macro version 3.14
Decursive Macro /equip Libram of Grace /decursive
Flash of Light Macro /equip Libram of Divinity /cast Flash of Light
Quick Heal Macro /equip Libram of Divinity /qh
Good luck with your Holy Paladin in Wow vanilla! Feel free to share this guide with your friends/guild. If you are going to use it in some forum please provide source to this page!
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