Patch 3.0 has implemented massive changes to spell mechanics, Blessing of Light has been removed and folded into our healing spells. Spellpower is the new stat needed for healing. New talents such as Beacon of Light and Judgements of the Pure have added more utility to Holy paladins. How has healing changed? How is gear evaluated now?

This guide is written from my experience after raiding Mount Hyjal and Black Temple as Holy since Patch 3.0. Any thoughts and comments, please feel free to leave a comment.

HOLY 3.0 CHANGES

If you have noticed, some Blessing spells have been removed and renamed Hand spells. The only staple Blessings are Might and Wisdom, Kings and Sanctuary if talented. Blessing of Light has been removed and folded into relevant spells, this means your healing spells are somewhat buffed. Blessing of Salvation is renamed as a Hand spell, reducing threat by 2% per second for 10 seconds and reducing all damage and healing done by 10 percent.

Healing gears are replaced with the Spellpower stat, unifying spell damage and healing as one.

1 spellpower nets you 1.88 healing.

So simply take the combined spellpower of your healing gears and multiply by 1.88 and you will have your healing stat.

Also, downranking is now impossible with the new changes and you can only consume one mana potion per fight. These changes are detrimental to paladin healing as both methods were instrumental in conserving mana.

LEVEL 70 TALENT BUILD

This is my recommended talent build, any opinions feel free to comment. Improved Lay on Hands used to be a talent to be avoided, but with Lay on Hands now requiring no mana and on a 20 minute cooldown it is worthwhile to invest your talent points.

KEY TALENTS

Healing Light
12% bonus to your healing spells and 12% effectiveness to Holy Shock. I assume this means the damage and healing of Holy Shock is raised by 12%.

Divine Intellect
More intellect means bigger mana pool and higher spell critical chances, take it.

Illumination
Refunds 60% mana of your previous healing spell that scored a critical. Bread and butter of the Holy paladin.

Improved Lay on Hands
Lay on Hands no longer consume all your mana and is reduced to a 20 minute cooldown. This is now a useful spells usable for desperate situations.

Divine Favor
When tank’s health goes low, you will want a critical heal to top him up. Divine Favor gives your that ensured critical chance.

Sanctifed Light
Adds 6% critical chance to Holy Light and Holy Shock. Holy paladins rely heavily on criticals.

Holy Power
Bonus 5% critical chance to all Holy spells. More criticals, bigger heals and better mana conservation by playing on Illumination talent.

Holy Shock
An instant spell that can heal and damage. With cooldown lowered from 15 seconds to 6 seconds, this spell will be useful in saving raid members who are about to go down.

Light’s Grace
Lowers your Holy Light casting from 2.5 seconds to 2.0 seconds. In intense healing situations, a shorter cast time is recommended for lag and human reaction time.

Infusion of Light
Reduces your Holy Light by 1 second and makes your Flash of Light instant after scoring a Holy Shock critical. The shortened cast time is good, but it requires heavy reliance on Holy Shock to crit.

Holy Guidance
Increases spellpower by 20% of your intellect. More spellpower equals higher base heals. Grab it.

Divine Illumination
Lowers mana cost of all spells by 50% for 15 seconds. Useful when you are about to go out of mana. But the 3 minute cooldown is a little harsh.

Enlightened Judgements
Increases the range of your Judgement by 30 yards and increases chance to hit by 4%. For healing paladins this is used in conjuction with Judgements of the Pure.

Judgements of the Pure
Increases casting and melee haste by 15% for 1 minute. This reduces the casting of your healing spells further.

Beacon of Light
Solid new spell, which allows you to double your healing. Cast it on a raid member and proceed to heal anyone else, all heals casted will also heal the person whom you casted Beacon of Light on.

HEALING IN RAIDS
Before patch 3.0, paladin healing was a simple matter of spamming Holy Light and Flash of Light. Lower ranks are used to conserve mana. With the changes in 3.0 it seems more is expected of the Holy paladin. Unforunately it seems to be towards the wrong step.

Many of the new talents focuses on reducing cast time of spells, while this is beneficial, it creates a dilemma for the paladin. With downranking out of the books and the new talents emphasizing on lowered cast times, there is more tendency for the paladin to go OOM. Holy Shock is promoted to be a new staple healing spell with its new 6 second cooldown, but the mana cost is double of Flash of Light. Granted it is an instant spell, but the emphasis on it to proc Infusion of Light is detrimental to mana. This changes the healing style of the paladin, in the past where chaincasting(continously casting spells over the raid) is used often for healing efficiency, paladins now have to adapt to a more reactionary stance to conserve mana. Reactionary healing might lower your healing if you have high latency or slow reaction time, although that is where the cast time reducing talents come into play. But the need to spam spells to receive these lowered cast times might be more of a disadvantage.

Additionally there is more work cut out for the paladin with Judgements of the Pure, having to judge to receive the 15% haste bonus. While judging is beneficial to the raid, it takes your eyes off the raid. Although you could make a macro to overcome that.

In summary, healing as a paladin has changed. You have to be more observant of your mana compared to before. Personally I’m not exactly fond the new talents, in fact in raid I rarely use them at all. Pre-3.0 I could spam Flash of Light and Holy Light(downranked) and it would not tax my mana, now my mana goes down faster than expected with the new mechanics. Holy Shock was not utilized much due to its mana cost, thus Infusion of Light did not proc much. I slowed down my healing so as to conserve mana. It would be preferred if some the talents reduce mana cost or increases healing instead.

If you have an excellent healing strategy for raids and want to share, please email me or leave a comment.