November 24, 2010

Best In Slot Holy Paladin 4.0.3 updates, major glyphs

Last night I switched the main site over to show Cataclysm items by default.  If you don't want to see Cata items on this list you can filter out the "Not Available" items and see WOTLK items.

I also updated the glyphs page to reflect the 4.0.3 glyph updates.  Major glyphs are much harder to select now.  The swing glyphs (to me) seem to be Cleanse, Light of Dawn, and Beacon.  The two standby glyphs I'd use for raiding in Cata are Beacon and Divine Plea.  Cleanse depends on the fight for how useful it is and Light of Dawn depends on what size group you're healing.  If you're healing a large group (10 or 25) that requires Light of Dawn, need lots of cleansing, but you don't need to change your beacon target at all, then Divine Plea + LoD + Cleanse seem to be the best.  So there are a few major glyph combos that I think I'll probably use depending on the encounter/raid size:

10/25 man standby: Divine Plea + Beacon + LoD
10/25 man single beacon, cleanse heavy, aoe damage: Divine Plea + Cleanse + LoD
10/25 man tank/beacon swapping, cleanse heavy, little aoe damage: Divine Plea + Beacon + Cleanse
5 man: Divine Plea + Divinity + Cleanse

Why choose beacon as a standby?  Well, swapping beacons is an easy way to put a "hot"-like effect on someone and I can see it being useful in Cata to swap it for free, especially for any fight with over 1 tank (most likely a lot).  If you're doing primarily 5 mans then the beacon glyph probably isn't something you want to use.  I'd go with the Divine Plea + Divinity + Cleanse route if you're pounding 5 mans (LoD is also useless there).

As for Lay on Hands glyphs... using up two majors to buff one 8 minute cooldown spell seems silly.  Divnity is free mana though and is good for 5 mans.

I think there is too much situational glyph swapping in major glyphs.  I guess that's what Blizzard is going for, but in some encounters glyphs are going to be clearly useless.

5 comments:

  1. Why so much emphasis on glyph of cleanse? Even for heroic LK 25 mana isn't an issue. Your last statement was that there is alot of situational glyph swapping, and i would agree; but have you been on beta and raided enough to see that cleanse gets used a ton, and effects your mana pool in a way that warrants the use of the glyph itself?

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  2. Mana is incredibly different at 85 than it is at 80. At 80 you can use FOL with almost total disregard if you want. I haven't seen what cleanses look like in Cata raids yet but I've done several heroics and dungeons and the glyph is a pretty good mana saver. Beacon/LoD will be totally useless in 5 mans at least so it's the best alternative there.

    Cleanse costs around 2500 mana (I believe?) at 85, that I remember. It's something incredibly high like that to the point where the glyph saves a big chunk of your mana when you use it. If you double-dispell in a raid it's going to hurt since there's no safeguard anymore. I can imagine there's going to be a dedicated cleansing person in each raid, in which case if you're not the person assigned then the DP+Beacon+LoD option will always be your best raiding set.

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  3. To add onto what I mentioned before... if there are many debuffs that must be cleansed immediately then you'll probably be cleansing regardless if you're the assigned person or not (assuming people go towards this route of assigning a person to cleanse in raids). So again, the majors are quite situational. If you're saving ~500 mana per cleanse with the glyph I'd say it adds up in a fight that requires it.

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  4. Id be interested as hell to speak with you more in-depth with you about just overall pally healing. I've followed your site ALOT, and although i don't agree with everything, i don't quickly dismiss it either. Your POV is extremely important to how i gear and play. So... ty for that :)

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  5. Thanks :)

    I try to look at top raiding guild paladins and see what they're doing as much as I can. Even in WOTLK there was a decent amount of variation among that small group of holy paladins. Cata will bring even more, partly due to choices like the one in this post. Just from looking at talent builds among other sources there's extreme variation for Cata already. Gear will also be hotly debated, even in WOTLK it was hard to come on an exact BIS consensus. Cata brings the reforging component and random stat gear (that isn't listed on the main site). It's to the point where I almost want to list a "top 3" choices for each slot on the index page list of gear (though top 2 is a step in the right direction).

    I don't want my gear choices or thoughts on playstyle to be an absolute resource for how things should be done, nor does Blizzard. There should be variation. The purpose of my site continues to be true to my original intent of bringing myself a valuable list of gear as a reference instead of hunting item sites (after the first time of course :P). If others find it useful I am happy to be of help. And I encourage others to challenge my choices and try to change my mind.

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