WoW Healadin lvl 60-70: Gear, spec, glyphs and suggestions?

Question

I recently brought my Paladin up past lvl 60 (using my usual solo-ing techniques).

I've decided I want to do the rest of this 'toon's leveling through random dungeon instances (as an experiment). Normally I don't like LFG PUGs (pick-up groups found through the newish "Looking For Group" interface) because they usually seem to be frenetic and impatient. (Yeah, my usual style could be described as methodical and almost sedately paced). So I'm somewhat less experienced with LFG PUGs than I am with other aspects of the game.

This Pally is dual spec'd (healadin/tankadin). When I've tanked it seems to work reasonably well. Feedback I get from others is generally positive and I don't seem to have issues with mana regen nor too many problem losing aggro (I can usually pull back the mobs that peel off of me before any clothie bites it).

However, when I'm trying to heal I'm apparently not doing so well. I got kicked from two PUGs in a row yesterday simply because I was having to drink after almost every trash skirmish. I was spending almost all my time doing Holy Light, Flash of Light and, in the latter case, keeping Beacon of Light on the tank. I was barely able to do any off healing and did almost no contribution to DPS.

Here's the exported talent build: Healadin Build: lvl 63

Currently I have major Glyph of Divinity, Glyph of Beacon of Light, and minor Glyph of Lay on Hands and Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom. My gear is a hodge podge mostly picked up from the AH on the same day that I leveled ... though I'm favoring MP/5 where I have a choice. (GearScore 898 --- +7657 armor, +88 str, +87 int, +41 manareg, +34 ap, +12 dodge, and so on).

When healing I have been using Concentration Aura and buff with Greater Blessing of Wisdom and Seal of Wisdom. (However, I'm suspicious of the latter of these buffs, no benefit unless I'm doing some melee).

So, my question is what would be some improvements I could make? What gear would be good for healing (and preferably not require me to mess with carrying around separate gear for tanking)? Are there better glyphs I should be using? Tweaks to my talent tree? Better buffs (including food buffs)?

As I said it appears that mana regen is my biggest issue ... though I also feel like my casting time it too slow (haste rating?).

(Incidentally I'm willing to consider that the problem may have been those two tanks. I know everyone complains about tanks all the time. So I'm hesitant to blame it on them. However, they were both DKs and I didn't look at their gear or specs ... but I don't think either of them were wielding a shield. Lvl 60/61 DKs are sorta fresh out of their starting areas and many of them seem to be much better at DPS and off-tanking than as primary tanks. It did feel like they were pulling way more trash at each skirmish than they needed to, and they would charge right from one skirmish to the next without checking my mana bar. I'm mostly here responding to their complaints that I was spending too much time drinking ... looking for ways to improve on that).

Answer 1

As a Holy Paladin, look for gear that has Intellect (increases Mana pool), spellpower (bigger heals), crit and haste. don't specificially gear for MP5/spirit. Unforunately for levels 60-70, gear will be a hodge-podge. Look at cloth, leather and mail gear as well, as some of the pieces are better itemized for healing, then the plate items available from outland. Keep you divine plea up, and use judgement of light up to help your healing and keep your haste buff up. Switch to judgement of wisdom if you're mana is getting real low. Also decide if you want to spam Holy Light (more crit) or Flash of Light (more SP). Check out EltistJerks.com, their fourms have a lot of useful info on gearing, though it is aimed more at end-game raiders.

Answer 2

A couple things

1) If you're having mana issues, you're probably using Holy Light (HL) instead of Flash of Light (FoL) way too much. Holy Shock (HS) can also drag your hpm down.

2) You have some slightly wasted talents (Blessed life, for one). I've redone up to the 51 points in Holy for you, I would consider these. The differences are easy to spot. One big one is that you have your Sacred Shield (SS) now heals your target for 100% of your FL over 12 sec. This lets you get double the bang out of your FL on light fights, and some extra kick on heavy ones. Link here

3) Glyph of Beacon of Light is good, but consider Glyph of Seal of Wisdom (SoW). Your healing spells cost 5% less mana while SoW is active, which has an obvious impact on your mana pool. Consider Illumination (mana back on crit) goes from base cost, so if your spell costs 200 mana, you take 5% off for GoSoW, costing you 190, but when you crit you actually get 30% of the 200 back (60), not 30% of the 190.

4) Stacking int at level 80 is pro. Stacking it at low levels is good but not ideal. You don't get the benefit of Divine Plea yet, so int loses some of its appeal. Keep with mp5. Consider ditching any items with str, tanking stats, or anything else like that. Only keep int, sp, mp5, crit, etc. Don't be afraid to wear cloth, leather, or mail. You're a healer. If you're taking substantial damage you need a better tank.

5) Use Divine Illumination often, whenever it is on cooldown and you're going to cast more than a couple heals. There's no reason not to! Same with Divine Favor. I often use a macro to combo Divine Favor with HL. Once every 2 minutes, I get a 100% crit with HL, which means higher heal (so less healing to do) and mana back. Both contribute to the mana pool in one way or another.

6) What aura are you using? You could consider devotion aura. Not ideal, but it would mean your tank requires less healing, stretching your mana pool further.

7) When do you drink? Start drinking as soon as you're out of combat if you're below 70%. Let the tank pull and drink while he's rounding them up. This also gives him time to get aoe on everything so they don't come onto you as soon as you heal him.

8) What do you drink? If you're not carrying at least 2 stacks of the best water, you're letting yourself down. Stay stocked on water! It's not that expensive, and if you're lucky you can get a mage to stock you up on a run.

9) At your level (if you're still 63ish) consider getting This trinket from BF. Every 2 minutes it lets you take 215 off your next spell cast. Macro this into your HLcast for extra mana reduction. If it crits with DF (both have a 2 min cd) you'll still get mana regen based on your original cast cost.

10) DK's can't wear shields. That's why they weren't wearing any. :-)

11) Cast your judgement EVERY minute to get the 15% haste bonus. Try to make it JoLight so your tank gets some heals from it. If you're not healing for a minute and you see a mob that will be up for a while, like a boss, try hitting the JoLight every 20 sec instead of every minute to keep JoLight up on the target.

Answer 3

Mp5 is a probelem but you should work on your mana pool, also, you should take a little more charge, and tell the tanks to stop, and say you will leave and they will need to wait another 20ish minutes for another healer. But mainly focus and casting flash and holy shock and using holy light when you have a lot of mana or if there is an emergency

Answer 4

Holy Paladins hang back from the action and keep people alive. You usually focus on healing the main tank/off tank with some minor and spot heal the raid healer if he/she gets into trouble.

So you don't need a shield, focus on getting offhand gear that gives you mana/haste bonuses.

Get chest enchants for powerful stats. get haste enchants on your boots. Royal Twilight opals are good as are Cardinal Ruby's. Have a look at this great wiki for enchantments by slot

Get extra sockets on your bracers/gloves and helmet. Ultimately you want to get your Spell power upto 3000+ (At level 80) and your haste around 500 from memory. You want fast crit heals basically. You can also raid heal 10 man's in the easier raid dungeons at level 80. I find I am spamming the Flash of Light a lot. You can get it down to 1 second cast time and with other raid member buffs have seen it down to 0.8 seconds which is awesome during boss fights.

The only drawback is that you should use tankadin spec while levelling if you're solo, so you can kill trash mobs quickly and complete quests. And use Heal spec whilst raiding.

Some handy pots/food:

1. Elixir of Lightning Speed
2. Baked Manta Ray

Great Feast is good too, but quite expensive.