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Holy Paladin State on the Shadowlands Beta - Return to Holy Power, Glimmer of Light, Infusion of Light
Shadowlands
Geposted
22.08.2020 um 04:44
von
Jaydaa
In this ultimate episode of the state of healers series, we'll explore Shadowlands Holy Paladin, the most changed healer to date. These devout and stalwart followers of the Light, wield their faith as a weapon to revitalize their comrades and wage a righteous war against all forms of evil. If called upon, these dogmatic lightbound soldiers will make the ultimate sacrifice laying down their own lives in service of the greater good.
Previous Articles in the Series:
Restoration DruidMistweaver MonkDiscipline PriestHoly PriestRestoration Shaman
Introduction
Currently all classes with their updated toolkits are able to be tested, but so much has changed with each healer on a base level and the introduction of covenants adds a completely new twist and set of tools for each class. Fortunately, the full toolkits for healers is basically out now including soulbinds, conduits, and legendaries. Unfortunately, only a limited amount of content is available for testing. For healers, the types of encounters have just as much of an impact on healer balance as the toolkits of the healers themselves. This series will attempt to give a first look at each healer specialization in Shadowlands and hopefully provide early feedback on the current changes including baseline toolkits, covenants, conduits, legendaries, and even the hot topic of abilities that feel lackluster still on the GCD.
Previous articles (ie.
Ny'alotha
and
Eternal Palace
) ranked healers according to desirability in previous raid tiers. While those articles were helpful especially for new and returning healers to determine what healers would be in high demand, it's nearly impossible to determine any sort of ranking or demand this early in development of Shadowlands due to how much is still unknown or in flux regarding healing.
Remember, this is only my opinion on healers so far in Shadowlands and primarily comes from a PvE point of view. Everyone should provide as much constructive feedback as possible. As always, the information presented here is based on the 9.0 Beta cycle as of this article's release date and thus will almost certainly be inaccurate when the Shadowlands officially launches. Expect lots of changes to classes, covenants, soulbinds, conduits, legendaries, items, and encounters between now and launch. It should be noted that we're trying to hit the
major
changes to each class, yet for the sake of brevity we won't cover every single spell differential or mana cost reduction. If you're interested in the entirety of the spell differentials for each class please see the Class Change link listed at the top of the section for each class.
About the Author
This article is written by
Jaydaa
a veteran healer and contributing writer to both World of Warcraft content and other Blizzard games content here on Wowhead. I've been raiding in WoW for almost 15 years at various levels of progression. I've contributed to the theorycrafting of multiple healing classes, notably Mistweaver Monks and Restoration Druids. Find me on
Twitter
or on the
Wowhead Discord
.
Contributors
Pelinal
, Holy Paladin with over 10 years top end raiding experience, Wowhead Holy Paladin Guide Writer, and Templar/Holy Staff Member of
Hammer of Wrath Paladin Discord
.
Holy Paladin
Paladin Class Changes
We'll be primarily looking at how Holy Paladins have changed since Battle for Azeroth, especially in the stripped down world of healing sans Azerite, Essences, and Corruption. Holy Paladins were absolutely the biggest benefactors of the additional systems of Battle for Azeroth giving rise to the dominant
Lichtschimmer
playstyle that had strong throughput, offered high mobility (as long as the paladin can
Kreuzfahrerstoß
an enemy), and had no real mana restraints; a playstyle that remains quite strong currently on live even after multiple targeted nerfs to the playstyle.
Azerite provided the powerful
Lichtschimmer
trait that scaled primarily based on item level of Azerite gear. The
Vision der Perfektion
essence combined with talent
Geweihter Zorn
and a Retribution Azerite trait
Erlass des Lichts
gave greater access to
Zornige Vergeltung
and consequently more
Heiliger Schock
s essentially supercharging the playstyle. High uptime on
Zornige Vergeltung
became one of the highest priorities for
Lichtschimmer
Holy Paladins, so it's no surprise that
Verderbnis - Unbeschreibliche Wahrheit 1
became the go-to corruption especially after corruptions became available from a vendor later in patch 8.3.
For Shadowlands, there appears to be two emerging playstyles for Holy Paladins; the melee variant that is reminiscent of BFA Holy Paladin and the more traditional caster variant typical of previous expansions. The melee build focuses on the new talented spellpower scaling
Lichtschimmer
and primarily generates Holy Power via
Kreuzfahrerstoß
and
Macht des Kreuzfahrers
. Though the support systems that helped turn
Lichtschimmer
into the premiere Holy Paladin healing playstyle are going away with Shadowlands, the spec is still alive and fairly strong in Shadowlands. This spec was dampened by the addition of a hefty mana cost to
Kreuzfahrerstoß
, and as such generally ignores
Lichtblitz
and
Heiliges Licht
even with
Lichtinfusion
active. The traditional caster variant has felt weak comparatively due to lower holy power generation and a stronger reliance on mana. We'll examine the changes for Holy Paladin and try to put them in context of how they affect both playstyles.
Baseline Toolkit Changes
Holy Power Resource System
: Similarly to Retribution in BFA and former incarnations of the spec in prior expansions, Holy Paladins have once again inherited the Holy Power resource system. Holy Paladins will generate Holy Power via a number of generators holding up to a max of 5 Holy Power. They'll then spend 3 Holy Power on one of a few mana-free spenders.
Generators:
Heiliger Schock
,
Kreuzfahrerstoß
,
Hammer des Zorns
, and
Lichtblitz
/
Heiliges Licht
via
Turm der Strahlen
.
Spenders:
Wort der Herrlichkeit
,
Licht der Morgendämmerung
,
Schild der Rechtschaffenen
, and
(Talent).
Holy Power in Shadowlands marks a return of the builder-spender resource system for Holy Paladins instead of their more cooldown oriented system of Battle for Azeroth. For most of BFA, Holy Paladins have eschewed a large portion of their toolkit for the fast and high throughput playstyle of
Lichtschimmer
often neglecting abilities like
Licht der Morgendämmerung
except when filling empty GCDs while waiting for the cooldowns of
Heiliger Schock
or
Kreuzfahrerstoß
. With this new resource and the balancing of the
Lichtschimmer
spells, Holy Paladins generate Holy Power with a similar rotation as in BFA but now mix in a fair amount of spenders to supplement their throughput. This gives paladins more control over when they spend those resources, instead of using all abilities as they are active.
Aura Revamp
: Auras have been extended baseline to all Paladin specializations rather than talents specific to Holy Paladins. Instead of only having access to a single aura throughout an encounter, Paladins now have access to 4 different auras at max level that can be swapped at will. Because these auras do not stack with those of other Paladins, if multiple Paladins are in a raid then there'll need to be some organization to take advantage of this extra utility. Holy Paladins retain the exclusive ability
Aurenmeisterschaft
to empower their chosen aura and should be considered when assigning auras for Paladins.
REMOVED:
Aura of Mercy
and
Aura of Sacrifice
REWORKED
Aura der Hingabe
- No longer diminishes the damage reduction based on the number of allies in the aura radius instead just a flat 3% damage reduction. Nerf for any group smaller than 3, but exceptional buff for larger groups. The
Aurenmeisterschaft
empowerment increases the damage reduction to 15% for 8s, a 5% nerf compared to its BFA functionality.
NEW
Aura des Kreuzfahrers
- What was previously the Heart of the Crusader passive has now returned as an aura that affects all allies as well. The
Aurenmeisterschaft
empowerment increases the 20% mounted movement speed increase to 60% for 8s. It is worth noting paladins still had this passive baseline, and now must always switch auras to take advantage of this. This does impact
Göttliches Ross
. Personally love the return of this aura because of how impactful this can be for your group E.G getting out of the gate and to different objectives in battlegrounds could be.
NEW
Aura der Vergeltung
- The Retribution Paladin passive but in aura form granting 8s of
Zornige Vergeltung
when an ally within 40yds dies. The
Aurenmeisterschaft
empowerment grants an additional 4s of
Zornige Vergeltung
for a total of 16s with the Shadowlands leveling perk. For a Holy Paladin, this aura is interesting as it can be very powerful in the final phase of a fight as players tend to die off slowly as an encounter concludes. Think
Uu'nat
's final phase if you need to consider how strong this could be. Ideally, as a healer you want to prevent any and all deaths wherever possible so this can be somewhat counter to your main goal; however, sometimes due to specific mechanics players are destined for death and this can be seen as an exceptional boon that Holy Paladins can take advantage. I think the base ability can be quite strong, but the
Aurenmeisterschaft
empowerment feels quite weak especially when you consider the precise timing required to achieve the benefit and generally how much more useful 15% raid wide damage reduction tends to be.
NEW
Aura der Konzentration
- A favorite aura returns reducing interrupt and silence durations. The
Aurenmeisterschaft
empowerment grants full interrupt and silence immunity for 8s. Not since the days of
Thok der Blutrünstige
have players in PvE been frequently silenced or interrupted, this will almost certainly be invaluable in PvP.
While these are not exactly game breaking changes to Auras, the extra utility is a welcomed changed for a system that largely felt stale. Now there's a few choices and even some reward for capitalizing on different opportunities. Freeing up an entire talent row is the icing on top of the aura cake.
New Baseline Holy Paladin Abilities
:
NEW
- A more limited Holy Power generator that can only be used on enemies below 20% health or during
Zornige Vergeltung
with the level 58 perk. While the ability itself doesn't heal, as a Holy Power generator it does contribute to throughput and the cooldown can be reduced by haste. With the addition of Discipline's
Schattenwort: Tod
and subsequent
Kuss des Todes
legendary, there's a general trend toward giving healers execute abilities that significantly contribute to throughput which can be a fairly controversial move. Specifically, the final 20% of a bosses health tends to be high incoming damage burn phases where high healing and damage are required to secure the kill. Having two healers provide both execute damage and additional healing is a questionable call, especially when the two specializations given an execute have typically been heralded as the premiere healers in BFA due to their extra utility and rarely struggle to find placement in Mythic raids because of this utility.
NEW
- Single target healing Holy Power spender with very few limitations. With the rebalance of
Lichtschimmer
and the sheer strength of
Wort der Herrlichkeit
, you'll want to avoid eschewing your spenders and capping on Holy Power.
Schild der Rechtschaffenen
- A defensive and AoE damaging Holy Power spender. Requires you to be in melee and properly positioned to maximize your damage. Overall nice to have a way to deal AoE damage beyond
Weihe
and
Lichtschimmer
or even as a minor physical damage reduction. While it's rare for Holy Paladins to use 2-handed weapons it definitely pops up on occasion. Limiting itemization is never a good thing unless there's a meaningful trade off. Remains off the GCD even for Holy Paladins.
NEW
(Level 54)
A unique tracking ability that will probably have limited uses, but it certainly doesn't hurt to have the ability.
NEW
A thematic albeit limited crowd control ability for Paladins on a 15s cooldown for a single target and a range of 20yds. Might see some uses for Shadowlands with a fair amount of undead; however, because it instantly aggros the target and causes them to flee in random directions aggroing other nearby enemies, there tends to be way better more controlled crowd control abilities. Perhaps better in PvP for various pets, etc.
Shadowlands Leveling Perks
:
NEW
Rank 2 (Level 44)
Casting Flash of Light or Holy Light on your Beacon of Light grants 1 Holy Power.
While not specifically a leveling perk received during Shadowlands content, This passive helps offset the cost of directly healing a beacon, similar to the mana return Holy Paladins had before. Due to the low ability to generate Holy Power currently, this may be a mana efficient way to heal, however is a significant throughput loss. Because you need to heal your
Flamme des Glaubens
target, you lose out on the beacon transfer healing which at the buffed 50% can be fairly significant to your overall throughput. It can feel even worse if your
Flamme des Glaubens
target doesn't need healing but you still are wanting to generate Holy Power in preparation for incoming damage.
NEW
Rank 2 (Level 56)
Duration of
Zornige Vergeltung
granted increased by 4 sec.
A small duration increase to the
Zornige Vergeltung
granted by
Aura der Vergeltung
taking it to 12s baseline or 16s with the
Aurenmeisterschaft
empowerment. Nice perk but definitely not game breaking.
NEW
Rank 2 (Level 58)
Hammer of Wrath may be used on any target during Avenging Wrath.
Turns this execute generator into one that can be used anytime
Zornige Vergeltung
is up. With a few additional ways to gain
Zornige Vergeltung
in Shadowlands,
Hammer des Zorns
becomes an even more significant generator for Holy Paladins.
Reworked Holy Paladin Abilities
:
Flamme des Glaubens
Holy: Wrap a single ally in holy energy, causing your heals on other party or raid members to also heal that ally for 40%50% of the amount healed.
With
Flamme des Glaubens
transfer increasing to 50% healing this is a large passive increase to Holy Paladin healing on tanks. How much of this will be effective healing remains to be seen especially with other healers receiving fairly significant tank healing abilities. Think the strong legendary
Die Lektion des Dunklen Titanen
from Restoration Druids with
Photosynthese
as an example. Here's hoping that tanks are going to get absolutely trucked throughout the entire expansion.
Kreuzfahrerstoß
Strike the target for (76.5% of Attack power) Physical damage. Generates 1 Holy Power. Cost changed from None to 12.0% of base mana.
The bread and butter Holy Power generator for melee Holy Paladins. This change makes it so that even Melee Holy paladins can oom, however it also means there is no room to use spells such as,
Lichtblitz
and
Heiliges Licht
even with
Lichtinfusion
active which are spells that saw larger mana increases. As a side effect of this change Holy Paladins lose the ability to deal damage without spending mana outside of
Weihe
. While not huge other healers could spend open GCDs with damaging spells to still contribute while generating mana. This means generally as a paladin if you want to play conservatively, or are already oom your only option is to press no or fewer buttons and wait for passive mana regen.
Heiliger Schock
Generates 1 Holy Power. Cost changed from 10.0% of base mana to 14.0% of base mana.
Holy Power generator for both caster and melee Holy Paladin. The mana cost helps offset the addition of the free Holy Power spenders. Did receive a small hit to throughput in Shadowlands. Last time Holy Paladins had Holy Power this spell had a shorter cooldown, as such Holy Power generation is significantly hampered comparatively to previous iterations of the spec where Holy Power was available.
Lichtinfusion
Your critical Holy Shocks reduce the cost of your next Flash of Light by 30% or increase the healing of your next Holy Light by 30%.
For
Lichtschimmer
Holy Paladins,
Lichtinfusion
procs were largely ignored except to fill empty GCDs. While this is a core passive for caster Holy Paladins, history seems to be repeating itself for
Lichtschimmer
Holy Paladins as they largely ignore these procs. The core issue here is that the benefits of casting
Lichtblitz
and
Heiliges Licht
even under
Lichtinfusion
are generally outmatched by
Heiliger Schock
or
Kreuzfahrerstoß
as these are both cheaper Holy Power generators. In the case of
Kreuzfahrerstoß
, it helps get
Heiliger Schock
off cooldown via
Macht des Kreuzfahrers
. Unless you spend
Lichtblitz
and
Heiliges Licht
on a
Flamme des Glaubens
target, which severely reduces its throughput due to not beacon transferring, then you're just not generating Holy Power.
Licht der Morgendämmerung
Cost changed from 14.0% of base mana to 3 Holy Power. Cooldown changed from 12 sec cooldown to None
Light of Dawn moves from a rotational cooldown to a free Holy Power spender limited only by your Holy Power generation. Still has all the positional requirements of BFA.
Weihe
Cooldown changed from 4.5 sec cooldown to 9 sec cooldown
While not a huge change, you'll no longer be able to quickly reposition your
Weihe
should the positioning of the encounter change.
From a base toolkit standpoint, Holy Paladins have been the most extensively changed in Shadowlands and arguably they needed to be in order to incorporate the dominant
Lichtschimmer
playstyle into the baseline Holy Paladin. For the most part Blizzard accomplishes this goal giving rise to what appears to be two different ways to heal as a Holy Paladin; the melee Shockadin with a playstyle similar to BFA's
Lichtschimmer
build, and the traditional caster Holy Paladin. However, while they've carved out spaces for each playstyles in a single specialization there's still a lot of rough spots and inequities between the two. If Shadowlands were to go live today, you'd likely see
Lichtschimmer
or the melee build remain the dominant playstyle due to higher throughput not to mention the passive damage contributions.
For
Lichtschimmer
Holy Paladins, there's a lot of improvements even over the BFA version. The builder-spender resource system functions similarly to a cooldown oriented system, a rebalancing of the spec under this perspective has allowed the
Lichtschimmer
playstyle to expand even further bringing more spells (
Licht der Morgendämmerung
and
Wort der Herrlichkeit
) under its purview as core parts of the healing rotation rather than empty GCD fillers. Unfortunately,
Lichtblitz
and
Heiliges Licht
even under
Lichtinfusion
are still largely ignored as the benefits of hard casting abilities are either less enticing or limited to very specific
Flamme des Glaubens
targets. Without engaging in this
Lichtinfusion
gameplay loop,
Lichtschimmer
Holy Paladins look for other ways to spend excess mana most notably
Kreuzzug der Vergeltung
.
For traditional caster Holy Paladins, the problems arise around Holy Power generation or lack thereof. Without being in melee to
Kreuzfahrerstoß
, you have to rely on
Heiliger Schock
and
Turm der Strahlen
to generate Holy Power.
Turm der Strahlen
Holy Power generation generally feels bad because of the limits on who can be healed but also because you're trading for
Flamme des Glaubens
healing transfer for that Holy Power. If that
Flamme des Glaubens
target doesn't need healing than you're just trading excessive mana for Holy Power. Now consider that you're more mana constrained than your
Lichtschimmer
comrades and ultimately the choice becomes clear as to what playstyle will dominate. Holy Power spenders do a lot of healing, and being limited to only one generator in
Heiliger Schock
every 9 seconds makes the build feel slow and sluggish.
So how do we fix the issues to make both playstyles viable giving players more agency over how they play Holy Paladin? While there's a lot of ideas out there from simple tuning changes for both throughput and mana, I personally would rather focus on
Lichtinfusion
. For a more in-depth look please see the
Infusion of Light and Holy Power
section below.
Talent Changes
For brevity, we'll only be covering new, reworked, and removed talents for Holy Paladin. There were a fair number of talent tier changes that we won't cover here but are overall important to talent balance. Please see our
Shadowlands Talent Calculator
for a more complete look at talent positioning.
REMOVED:
Aura of Mercy
,
Aura of Sacrifice, and
Aura der Hingabe
.
Aura der Hingabe
was reworked and made baseline.
Aura system was made baseline with new auras. Existing aura talents were replaced. See Aura Revamp above.
Faust der Gerechtigkeit
Each Holy Power spent reduces the remaining cooldown on Hammer of Justice by 2 sec.
Reworked to work off Holy Power instead of
Richturteil
. For Holy Paladins that were rarely using
Richturteil
this is an overall buff to the talent. However, in PvP it can actually be more difficult to generate the Holy Power necessary to see a similar cooldown reduction.
Leuchtfeuer der Tugend
and
Flamme der Zuversicht
Had their healing transfer buffed to 50% and the passive
Turm der Strahlen
applied.
Changes meant to bring them inline with the new standard
Flamme des Glaubens
.
Macht des Kreuzfahrers
Crusader Strike reduces the cooldown of Holy Shock and Light of Dawn by 1.5 sec.
Licht der Morgendämmerung
removed since it no longer has a cooldown as a Holy Power spender.
Göttliche Bestimmung
Holy Power abilities have a 15% chance to make your next Holy Power ability free and deal 20% increased damage and healing.
Functional rework for Holy Power. No longer a must pick for
Lichtschimmer
builds as it no longer works with
Heiliger Schock
.
NEW
Holy Shock leaves a Glimmer of Light on the target for 30 sec. When you Holy Shock, all targets with Glimmer of Light are damaged for (16% of Spell power) or healed for (42% of Spell power). You may have Glimmer of Light on up to 8 targets.
Functionally the same as the Azerite Trait
Lichtschimmer
. Currently tuned in the area of 3x Mythic traits worth of the live trait, it won't be contributing as much healing as BFA simply due to losing a lot of the support systems that propped it up. However, it is supplemented by the Holy Power spenders so the playstyle is still quite viable.
Heiliger Rächer
Your Holy Power generation is tripled for 20 sec. Cooldown changed from 1.5 min cooldown to 3 min cooldown
Functional change to focus more on Holy Power generation. Very potent but doubled cooldown. Choice on talent tier will be short duration consistent buff, strong cooldown, or sustained albeit more random throughput. Won't be able to always combine with
Zornige Vergeltung
.
NEW
Vom Licht gerettet
When an ally with your Beacon of Light is damaged below 30% health, they absorb the next damage. You cannot shield the same person this way twice within 1 min.
Overall other talents will do more healing, but the strength of this one is how the healing is delivered when your tank likely needs it most.
NEW
The Light magnifies your power for 15 sec, granting 308 Haste, Critical Striek, Mastery , and Versatility. 45s Cooldown. Costs 3 Holy Power.
With a third uptime, this could be a pretty good short duration buff depending on the damage patterns of a fight.
Erwachen
Word of Glory and Light of Dawn hashave a 15% chance to grant you Avenging Wrath for 10 sec.
Functional change to make
Erwachen
healing Holy Power spender agnostic. Ideally
and
Schild der Rechtschaffenen
will be added to make it truly Holy Power spender agnostic.
The Holy Paladin talent tree didn't receive a massive overhaul. Most of the changes were done to either adjust for the new Holy Power resource system, as additions after the removal of the aura tier in the Aura System revamp, or to make room for the new
Lichtschimmer
. In an interesting twist for healers, as long as both melee and caster Holy Paladins are viable nearly all the talents have a real chance of being used where the talent choice will largely be dictated by damage patterns or the type of healing required. If
Lichtschimmer
/melee Holy Paladin remains the dominant playstyle then choices tend to be more cookie cutter offering few options on many talent tiers. Hopefully a golden opportunity like this doesn't slip through the cracks.
Covenant Abilities
Kyrian:
Göttlicher Glockenschlag
&
Läutende Klarheit
(Potency Conduit)
- 5
Heiliger Schock
s for the price of one. That's some good mana efficiency and a lot of Holy Power. Combined with
Lichtschimmer
and you'll also get a lot of extra healing out of it as well. The conduit
Läutende Klarheit
takes that efficiency even further starting at base 30% scaling up to 58% at max rank. At a 1 minute cooldown there's not a lot of downsides to this one. Versatile based on your target allowing you to do some pretty serious AoE damage if you're targeting enemies.
Provost beschwören
- The steward offers some quality of life options like free talent changes or a vendor to sell things, but it essentially boils down to
Phiole des Gleichmuts
, a glorified healthstone for all intents and purposes. The healing will be nice and contribute albeit minimally to throughput, and the personal curse and bleed dispel for Holy Paladins could come in handy as you can't normally dispel those; when combined with Kleia's
Aszendentenphiole
soulbind you might even find a few opportunities to avoid entire mechanics though with
Gottesschild
you already kind of have one of these abilities. Might not be the strongest all the time, but solid ability regardless.
Venthyr:
Ascheweihung
&
Geheiligte Einsicht
(Potency Conduit)
- Essentially a large single target
Erblühen
that deals both damage and healing and allows you to use
Hammer des Zorns
regardless of the enemies health. Scales with haste to increase tick rate. Although maybe a bit underpowered, the problems with this covenant ability are largely related to the cooldown, the lack of mobility, and the way the healing is delivered. At a lengthy 4 minutes, the cooldown is just unwieldy. Greater access to a cooldown for a healer will always be better than a bigger one on a longer timer. Perhaps baseline reducing the cooldown or Holy Power consumption reducing the CD would go a long way to adjusting the cooldown. Because you can't move the
Ascheweihung
during its 30s duration, if the encounter moves across the room you're absolutely screwed. While it's more rare in raid, in Mythic+ it's almost a certainty that you won't be standing in a single spot for too long. Perhaps reactivating the ability to reposition could solve this dilemma similar to Restoration Shaman's
Vespertotem
. Damage in PvE typically comes in waves of burst and it's rare when you need sustained single target healing. If the healing was more upfront, it might be more viable. Finally, the
Hammer des Zorns
ability usage is a weird benefit. Good when you don't have
Zornige Vergeltung
up with this spell, but as it's a large amount of healing you'll likely want to have
Zornige Vergeltung
to buff the healing and you'll have
Hammer des Zorns
available in that situation already. In its current state it's okay but there are better options currently and the
Geheiligte Einsicht
potency conduit doesn't seem to scale as fast at 10% to 25% increase at min and max rank respectively.
Schattentor
- Quite possibly the star of the covenant signature abilities, it's hard to say no to a 35yd teleport with a minute cooldown even if it has a 1.5s cast time. This type of movement is almost universally valuable and it's hard to think of an occasion where it'd be useless. Full Venthyr dungeon groups can plan skips around this ability. As a fairly immobile Holy Paladin that needs to get back into melee as soon as possible, I will never say no to more mobility.
Necrolord:
Hammer des Bezwingers
&
Rechtschaffene Macht
(Potency Conduit)
- A more rotational fairly straightforward covenant ability. Essentially every 30s a
Wort der Herrlichkeit
and
Licht der Morgendämmerung
combo costs only 4 Holy Power instead of 6. The additional
Licht der Morgendämmerung
can proc
Göttliche Bestimmung
and
Erwachen
. From a throughput perspective this one is pretty okay and has a lot of synergy with
Maraads letzter Atemzug
legendary. There's some frustration if you can't take full advantage of the
Licht der Morgendämmerung
either because you don't currently need AoE healing or you're not properly positioned. The other issue is it's just kind of boring. The other covenant abilities just tend to be more exciting with bolder visuals etc. It could definitely help if the upfront damage hammer were instead a
Heiliger Schock
giving it more synergy with the spec rather than feeling detached in its current state. The ability does feel a bit better when it turns into a personal heal with
Rechtschaffene Macht
potency conduit scaling from 100% to 240% increased damage at max rank.
Fleischformung
- This extra self survivability will be nice and as an absorb will contribute minimally to overall throughput, but where this one loses me is the 4s channel. Adding a long channel to our toolkit is not exactly something we want. Fortunately soulbinds allow this to be channeled on the move via
Emenis wanderndes Fleisch
or even avoid CC via
Ultimative Gestalt
though with
Gottesschild
you already kind of have one of those abilities. Could be an excellent tool for surviving burst damage especially in high Mythic+, but it's a bit of a harder sell against the other movement oriented covenant signature abilities.
Night Fae:
Segen der Jahreszeiten
&
Der lange Sommer
(Potency Conduit)
via
Segen des Frühlings
Segen des Sommers
Segen des Herbstes
Segen des Winters
- A rotating cast of single target buffs for you or an ally. For a Holy Paladin this offers a fair amount of utility but also can be quite the personal throughput increase. You're likely to put
Segen des Sommers
and
Segen des Winters
on DPS players when you can cuz they'll likely make better use of them. The majority of your personal throughput will be in
Segen des Frühlings
and
Segen des Herbstes
. For
Segen des Frühlings
, you'll bless either your tank, yourself, or a fellow healer. While 10% healing might not seem like much it can amount to a lot. The larger benefit can be the tank, especially tanks that heal themselves like Blood Death Knights. Other healers gain value from healing that tank as well. Strong buff for sure and for 30s too. For
Segen des Herbstes
, the cooldown reduction should not be underestimated. While this essentially amounts to an extra 15s of cooldown reduction which might not seem like a lot, this does include all cooldowns;
Zornige Vergeltung
,
Kreuzfahrerstoß
,
Heiliger Schock
,
and even
Segen der Jahreszeiten
itself all count all at once. That's a fair amount of cooldown reduction when you count multiple abilities. Tons of flexibility and decision making. Downside of this one is the potency conduit
Der lange Sommer
doesn't do a lot for Holy Paladins in regards to healing throughput as it now applies to
Segen des Sommers
instead of the earlier version that modified
Segen des Herbstes
. With the most recent Beta build the cooldown of these blessings has moved from 30s to 45s causing this covenant to take quite a hit.
Seelengestalt
- With the recent buffs to
Seelengestalt
including the instant blink on activation and movement speed increase this one has definitely shot to the forefront of signature abilities. While the
Sylvari Mantle
soulbind has been removed, this still improves mobility a lot. You likely won't be coming up with skips for such a limited 15 yard blink, but you get 3-4 in the 12s duration so you may have some opportunities to blink over some particularly nasty mechanics. Comes with a cosmetic collecting minigame which is fantastic.
As of right now, after looking at the entire covenant package, signature and soulbinds included, I'd be picking between
Kyrian
and
Night Fae
for Holy Paladins. Both covenants offer very versatile healing tools to work with for all aspects of Shadowlands in PvE. Due to the most recent nerf to
Night Fae
, I'm pretty solidly
Kyrian
as of current tuning. The other two remaining covenants really aren't that far behind but seem more limited in their scope. A few changes here and there could really boost them to the forefront.
Lackluster GCDs
Heiliger Rächer
&
Zornige Vergeltung
- This combination of cooldowns plagued Holy Paladins throughout BFA especially towards the end of the expansion as the cooldown of each got shorter and shorter thanks to
Unbeschreibliche Wahrheit
. Because you frequently lined these up, having 2 GCDs before you actually started to heal did not feel good and goes against the immediacy healers have when popping cooldowns. While the cooldowns are less likely to line up as often in Shadowlands thanks to the changes done to
Heiliger Rächer
, it would certainly go a long way in for add upfront effects to at least
Heiliger Rächer
. Instantly gaining Holy Power would alleviate a lot of those issues.
Legendaries
Legendaries return with Shadowlands with each specialization having 4 class-specific legendaries and 4 spec-specific legendaries to choose from some being more passive in nature and others being more build defining. Ultimately tuning will decide which of these will be the strongest, so we'll mostly be looking at these from a mechanical standpoint in terms of how they change the playstyle of the Holy Paladins.
General Paladin Legendaries
- A toned down version of the Anima Power in Torghast. While the damage reduction can be good the primary buff is granted when maxing out your Holy Power which isn't too difficult. The problem arises when needing to potentially delay a Holy Power spender to get the buff leading to some awkward decision making.
- Interesting way to get a fair amount of extra Holy Power by turning your
Vorahnung
spells into throughput abilities as well as offering some additional upfront power to
Zornige Vergeltung
. When you don't need those
Vorahnung
tools this is a decent way to gain some on-demand Holy Power albeit on fairly long cooldown abilities. To maximize this legendary you'll want to keep these spells on cooldown as often as possible specifically when fight lengths allow for an additional use. In these situations you'll be going into a fight down a lot of your extra utility which might not be the best situation to be in.
- A more sustained Holy Power generator that works for both caster Holy Paladin and
Lichtschimmer
and nice if you're already using
Richturteil
on cooldown for
Richturteil des Lichts
. The downside for this is purely the RNG related. It doesn't work off of a deck system, so often times procs feel like feast or famine.
- Super niche legendary that helps get your utility back up faster for more frequent uses especially if your raid is low on other Paladins.
Holy Paladin Legendaries
Infloreszenz des Sonnenbrunnens
- The premiere caster Holy Paladin legendary while almost useless for
Lichtschimmer
melee Holy Paladins due to their lack of hard casting. The wording on this can be a bit a confusing, so let me clarify. When you proc
Lichtinfusion
, you gain 2 charges of the buff. Fairly versatile in terms of either reducing mana usage for
Lichtblitz
or increasing throughput for
Heiliges Licht
. Would almost certainly need to be retuned if consuming
Lichtinfusion
granted Holy Power, but would be a very strong interaction to further increase Holy Power generation for caster Holy Paladin.
Maraads letzter Atemzug
A legendary that increases throughput via
Licht des Märtyrers
, a spell that hasn't really had a clear spot in the Holy Paladin toolkit for awhile due to its many limitations and overall low throughput. This one does make it significantly better and has a lot of synergy with the
Necrolord
Paladin covenant ability
Hammer des Bezwingers
that allows for more casts of
Licht der Morgendämmerung
in addition to the
Ungezügelte Hingabe
conduit which rewards more frequent rotational use of
Licht des Märtyrers
. Overall could be a strong pick depending on final tuning.
Schattenbrecher, der Sonnenaufgang
- Removes some of the positioning restrictions on
Licht der Morgendämmerung
and offers a nice healing taken increase. Not super creative or exciting, but overall not bad. Has some synergy with
Necrolord
Paladin covenant ability
Hammer des Bezwingers
.
Schockbarriere
Extremely strong legendary prior to the 3 target cap, especially for
Lichtschimmer
Holy Paladins. This legendary seems to be remenisint of an older Holy Paladin ability however tuning will determine if this legendary is potent. In many scenarios you may end up overwriting your barriers wasting a lot of this legendaries effect.
Conduits
Potency Conduits improve the power of your spells and are spec or Covenant specific. We mentioned the covenant specific conduits earlier in the covenant section, so here we'll cover the Holy Paladin specific potency conduits. There's additional ranks largely believed to be based on ilvl, but it's still unconfirmed by Blizzard as to how the system works.
Holy Paladin Potency Soulbind Conduits
(Potency Conduit)
Aurenmeisterschaft
increases the healing of your next 3
Licht der Morgendämmerung
s by
40.0%
.
Ranks:
40.0%-96.0%
Turns a traditionally damage reduction cooldown into a gain of healing throughput. If the incoming damage is high enough that you're wanting to use
Aurenmeisterschaft
then it's likely that the beefier
Licht der Morgendämmerung
s will be helpful topping your group off after. At max rank it's almost equivalent to 3 extra free
Licht der Morgendämmerung
s. Pretty solid for AoE healing however due to the 3min cooldown it may not be as impactful as other legendaries..
(Potency Conduit)
Heiliger Schock
's chance to critically strike is increased by
15%
.
Ranks:
15-29%
Currently it is unclear how this conduit is *supposed* to work. If it acts as the tooltip suggest and adds an extra 15% chance to crit, it is a solid conduit for both melee and caster Holy Paladin. Melee Holy Paladin has an increased cast time of
Heiliger Schock
thanks to the cooldown reduction provided by
Macht des Kreuzfahrers
so will gain a fair amount of extra throughput. Fantastic for caster Holy Paladin in terms of gaining extra procs of
Lichtinfusion
and will be key especially when maximizing the benefits of the
Infloreszenz des Sonnenbrunnens
legendary. However it is currently providing a lot less critical strike chance than the tooltip suggests. This is hopefully just a bug
(Potency Conduit)
Heiliges Licht
heals up to 5 targets within 5 yds for
5.0%
of its healing.
Ranks:
5-19%
For
Lichtschimmer
melee Holy Paladins, this one just doesn't have a lot of value. Even in a scenario where consuming
Lichtinfusion
procs is a core part of their rotation, the likely scenario is they'll mostly be consumed with
Lichtblitz
. For caster Holy Paladin this offers a small AoE component and extra throughput and efficiency to one of their most cast spells. At max rank you're nearly doubling the efficiency and throughput of this spell. Not bad for a conduit. But it all relies on you actually casting
Heiliges Licht
, which currently doesn't seem to be in the cards.
Ungezügelte Hingabe
(Potency Conduit)
Licht des Märtyrers
's damage and healing is increased by
5%
each time it is cast. This effect can stack up to 5 times and lasts for 15 sec.
Ranks:
5-19%.
Because of the infrequency with which Holy Paladins of all types cast
Licht des Märtyrers
, this almost has to be playstyle-defining in order to make it worth the soulbind pathing and conduit slot.
Licht des Märtyrers
needs to a major part of your casts and healing breakdown to warrant it; dropping stacks and having to rebuild them will be crushing. That being said could be a very valuable asset in the
Maraads letzter Atemzug
/Necrolord
Hammer des Bezwingers
build.
Infusion of Light and Holy Power
Lichtinfusion
is at the center of many of Holy Paladins gameplay problems currently. It has been for a while, in previous expansions, the balance was such that for nearly every
Lichtinfusion
proc you would spend it on a
Lichtblitz
meaning the passive had little to no gameplay. Then in BFA when we saw the emergence of a new build it acted as a mechanic that was largely ignored. In Shadowlands this passive was redesigned such that it now increases
Heiliges Licht
s healing, and reducing the mana cost of
Lichtblitz
. This seems aimed at getting paladins back into the territory of very slow beefy heals that existed as a core part of the class for a long time. However, this retained the problem of its previous iteration by having
Lichtblitz
be neglected.
But what if it didn't have to be this way? The one suggestion that keeps coming up time and time again in discussions is what if
Lichtinfusion
also, or exclusively caused those spells to generate 1 additional Holy Power? This change is the crux of this next suggestion and takes a dive into what impact this change would have on the Holy Paladin class as a whole.
As mentioned above Holy Paladins seem primed for two completely and radically different playstyles. Both are exciting for different reasons. The melee "Shockadin" getting in there doing damage and healing, and the traditional "Caster" paladin triage healing with constant nuke heals. Each build also comes with distinct mechanical advantages and disadvantages inherently. the melee build is restricted to melee while also providing additional damage. Whereas the Caster build would have any advantages of range and would excel at priority healing and consistent tank healing. Tuning and encounter design may temporarily force a "Meta" one way or the other, but both builds have independent tuning points (
Kreuzfahrerstoß
CD/Mana cost,
Heiliges Licht
Healing/Mana Cost) that could be tuned to ensure there is close enough parity between them.
So let's take an inventory of some core problem's Holy Paladins face currently on Shadowlands Beta.
Lichtinfusion
doesn't represent a meaningful choice
Heiliges Licht
and
Lichtblitz
are ignored in the melee playstyle.
Casting
Heiliges Licht
and
Lichtblitz
regularly as a caster runs you oom quickly.
You don't have an option to generate mana, or play conservatively outside of not pressing any buttons.
The Caster build struggles to generate Holy Power.
How would this change impact the Melee Playstyle?
This change would have a smaller impact on the Melee playstyle than the caster variant. The overall rotation flow of using
Kreuzfahrerstoß
s
Heiliger Schock
s and your chosen spender would continue, however, you now have the option and ability to weave in
Lichtblitz
regularly to fill gaps in your rotation that previously would have been spent either waiting (depending on haste values), or on pure damage options. This also would allow Blizzard to claw back some of the hefty mana cost of
Kreuzfahrerstoß
as it feels like the purpose of that spells mana cost is to curb this specific playstyle. Ultimately having
Lichtinfusion
generate one additional Holy Power adds depth to the rotation, while also ensuring that more of the Paladins kit is being used. As currently if Shadowlands were to ship today, you would be ignoring not just one, two, or even three core class mechanics but four of them. As
Lichtinfusion
,
Heiliges Licht
,
Lichtblitz
and
Licht des Märtyrers
are not mechanics that you need concern yourself with as a Melee Paladin currently. This change gives the player the agency to weave those casts in, either to expend mana and generate Holy Power or if they need the large burst of healing they can still
Heiliges Licht
to provide a large nuke heal.
What are the benefits of the Caster play style?
This is the build that would benefit the most, the traditional cast based nuke healing Paladin is a classic going back from vanilla all the way to early BFA. It feels like Blizzard is genuinely trying to make this a viable play style and it is so so so close if
Lichtinfusion
generated 1 holy power the build would have excellent flow and player agency throughout its core rotation.
First to understand the problem lets look at how this "Caster" playstyle is on shadowlands currently.
The core rotation contains several sequences of constant
Heiliges Licht
s with very little to break up that "
Heiliges Licht
spam" In fact the time it takes to generate 3 Holy Power assuming you aren't
Kreuzfahrerstoß
ing (It costs too much mana, and if you were to take
Macht des Kreuzfahrers
you would be opting into the Melee playstyle). While not directly healing your beacon (this is always a loss in throughput) you are going to be waiting for one of your Holy Power spenders for 22-25 seconds. Let alone if you want to pool to 5 holy power.
You simply do not have access to enough Holy Power.
With the proposed
Lichtinfusion
change however, your rotation would look something like this assuming you use the
Infloreszenz des Sonnenbrunnens
legendary. Your stat priority would shift heavily towards crit due to how
Lichtinfusion
is still an on-crit proc effect. Though if the conduit scales well, and works as the tooltip suggests you could easily end up with crit chances on
Heiliger Schock
well above 80% even 100% with good gear.
Heiliger Schock
- 1.2s GCD - 8S CD - 1 Holy Power
Heiliges Licht
- 2.2s Cast - 2 Holy Power
Heiliges Licht
- 2.2s Cast - 3 Holy Power
Wort der Herrlichkeit
- 1.2s Cast - 0 Holy Power
Filler (
Richturteil
,
Heiliges Prisma
,
Zuversicht verleihen
) - 0 Holy Power
Heiliger Schock
- 1.2s GCD - 8S CD - 1 Holy Power
Heiliges Licht
- 2.2s Cast - 2 Holy Power
Heiliges Licht
- 2.2s Cast - 3 Holy Power
Filler (
Richturteil
,
Heiliges Prisma
,
Zuversicht verleihen
) - 0 Holy Power
Wort der Herrlichkeit
- 1.2s Cast - 0 Holy Power
Repeat
This creates a system that flows smoothly while also providing a large amount of agency with how you decide to press your buttons. Let's say you are moving and can't
Heiliges Licht
? You can use some of your filler spells such as
Richturteil
,
Heiliges Prisma
,
Zuversicht verleihen
, Covenant Ability,
Licht des Märtyrers
. Then begin casting your
Heiliges Licht
s and
Wort der Herrlichkeit
. Maybe you want to pool your Holy Power for an upcoming Damage event? You can then forego the
Wort der Herrlichkeit
in favor of another filler spell. Maybe you want to use more fillers without wasting
Lichtinfusion
charges? Then you can replace your
Heiliges Licht
with
Lichtblitz
s. You have complete agency within an 8s window of what to press in what sequence and on whom. While still giving you access to your holy power abilities on a regular basis.
You may be asking well why not just play
Macht des Kreuzfahrers
in this build? Well, that puts you firmly back into the Melee play-style, which as stated before takes advantage of this differently. But with the double
Lichtinfusion
legendary you would be wasting either
Lichtinfusion
charges, or
Kreuzfahrerstoß
charges which allow talents that otherwise are not possible to be taken such as Light's Hammer or
Zuversicht verleihen
.
Macht des Kreuzfahrers
is essentially just the pre-cursor to the Melee play-style.
Alright now with that said let us take another look at the problems paladin faces mentioned above, and what impact
Lichtinfusion
generating Holy Power would have on those problems.
Lichtinfusion
doesn't represent a meaningful choice - Now, with this change
Lichtinfusion
creates a meaningful choice, due to the increased efficiency of
Heiliges Licht
, the Melee play style is forced to compromise in
Lichtblitz
s or
Heiliges Licht
s depending on the state of their current haste values and cooldowns. With the caster build, you may need to increase the pace of your rotation else you will be wasting precious
Lichtinfusion
charges so you may
Lichtblitz
to do so.
Heiliges Licht
and
Lichtblitz
are ignored in the melee playstyle - Due to the high throughput of
Lichtblitz
s generating a holy power now, this build will naturally want to take advantage of those charges, forcing it to worry about mana more. Some of the mana cost of
Kreuzfahrerstoß
may need to be clawed back in this scenario, but that is healthier for the class overall due to problem #4 in this list. As mentioned above ideally this build would be casting
Heiliges Licht
s as well but has a much faster-paced rotation, as such may not have the time to do so making it a constant choice.
Casting
Heiliges Licht
and
Lichtblitz
regularly as a caster runs you oom quickly. - This problem still persists at some level. However, it is alleviated as Holy Power spenders by nature of costing Holy Power do not cost mana, as a result, the mana efficiency of the "Caster" playstyle goes up significantly.
You don't have an option to generate mana, or play conservatively outside of not pressing any buttons - If
Kreuzfahrerstoß
had some of its mana cost clawed back both builds could opt to let
Lichtinfusion
go to waste, in order to be a bit more efficient.
The Caster build struggles to generate Holy Power - The caster build has a respectable amount of Holy Power generation as
Lichtinfusion
, and
Heiliges Licht
is at the core of this build far more than the Melee Healer playstyle.
Ultimately if
Lichtinfusion
were to generate Holy Power it would address or touch on nearly every problem that the current iteration of Paladin faces setting paladin up to game-play wise in at least my opinion be one of the most interesting iterations of paladin ever that flows well and has complete player agency when it comes to spell selection. There are issues with tuning, perhaps the power of holy power spenders would need to come down, or other tuning issues may arise. But with Blizzard announcing that they are just now entering the tuning stage, this seems like the perfect time to make those tuning adjustments. It feels like Holy Paladin is at odds with itself, and is struggling to find its footing with conflicting mechanics and play styles. I'm afraid of missing the opportunity presented here to really bring the spec together because so many of the changes coming in Shadowlands are in the right direction.
Conclusion
Holy Paladins have a lot going for them in Shadowlands to be sure. With a bit of tuning and a few mechanical changes, there's a real possibility that Holy Paladins will have 2 viable and unique playstyles available to them including a talent tree with talents that are viable at least in certain scenarios. For healers in a new expansion, that's the dream and it doesn't get much better than that. That concludes our healer breakdown series on Wowhead. Stay tuned for final looks of healers as we move closer to Shadowlands release.
Previous Feedback Articles
These are all the spec feedback articles that we have done through the Shadowlands Alpha and Beta. Some of these are older than others, so please make sure to check the date. We'll be doing a second round of these articles once we're closer to the end of Beta.
Blood Death Knight
Arcane Mage
Assassination Rogue
Frost Death Knight
Fire Mage
Outlaw Rogue
Unholy Death Knight
Frost Mage
Subtlety Rogue
Havoc Demon Hunter
Brewmaster Monk
Elemental Shaman
Vengeance Demon Hunter
Mistweaver Monk
Enhancement Shaman
Balance Druid
Windwalker Monk
Restoration Shaman
Feral Druid
Holy Paladin
Affliction Warlock
Guardian Druid
Protection Paladin
Demonology Warlock
Restoration Druid
Retribution Paladin
Destruction Warlock
Beast Mastery Hunter
Discipline Priest
Arms Warrior
Marksmanship Hunter
Holy Priest
Fury Warrior
Survival Hunter
Shadow Priest
Protection Warrior
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