Paladin Best In Slot Shadowlands
Holy Paladin Gear and Best in Slot - Shadowlands 9.1. Vor 19 tagen: Updated trinket tiering slightly. Um 23:31: Updated some incorrect locations for drops in the mythic+ list Von Pelinal. Um 23:29: Updated to include shadowed orb of torment after recent trinket tuning balance and performance on encounters. This is currently your 3rd best conduit to pick up to slot into your soulbind if you are playing with the Maraad's Dying Breath legendary or 2nd best if you with any other legendary. Focused Light Your first option for your potency slot in the soulbind tree and is a notable throughput gain for a Holy Paladin in any covenant. The 9.1 Patch for Shadowlands is here and Ret Paladins have a big choice: Do we stick with Kyrian or move to the dark side??00:00 Intro00:36 Kyrian02:15 Nigh.
I’m Kina and welcome to my Holy Paladin guide for Shadowlands. I’ve raided at the top level since the end of Warlords of Draenor and I’m excited to share with you my insight into changes that Holy Paladins are receiving in Shadowlands.
What has changed
9.1 Changes for Holy paladins TL:DR
- Venthyr is still your best covenant choice for top tier progression raiding. If you do not participate in that kind of content, Kyrian is your go-to Covenant.
- You will have to re-craft legendaries that overlap with Domination socket items.
- Shock Barrier is still BiS for Holy Paladins and should be recrafted/upgraded in your leg slot.
- Maraad’s Dying Breath is your 2nd best legendary to craft and becomes a mandatory legendary to have for the Painsmith, Guardian and Sylvanas encounters to efficiently spot heal. Be sure to change one of your potency slots to Untempered Dedication from Hallowed Discernment to significantly increase theLight of the Martyr’s throughput. Additionally, you should change your level 50 Talent row from Glimmer of Light to Beacon of Faith to improve your throughput with Maraad’s Dying Breath especially with placing your beacon on targets who are afflicted by Shadowsteel Chains in the Painsmith Raznal encounter (for example).
- Radiant Ember’s is a viable craft for Venthyr paladin’s on the back slot but you shouldn’t invest Soul Cinders (new legendary currency) into upgrading to rank 5 or 6 until after you’ve fully upgraded Shock Barrier.
- Kyrian paladin’s Divine Resonance requires manual targeting of friendlies/enemies to fire off its automatic Holy Shocks at each 5 second intervals and should be crafted in the waist slot.
- Holy paladin damage has been nerfed but doesn’t change your playstyle in any way.
- Crusader’s Might has been nerfed to 1.0 second cooldown reduction of Holy Shock per use down from 1.5 which somewhat invalidates the talent in progression raiding. Light’s Hammer is now your baseline pick especially when paired with Avenging Wrath. On mobile raid encounters, Bestow Faith can edge over as a superior choice for its holy power generation and small boost in throughput.
- The new conduit Adaptive Armor Fragment will be your go-to choice for your 3rd potency slot in your soulbinds.
- Theotar is still your BiS soulbind for Venthyr
- Kleia is still your BiS soulbind for Kyrian
- Stat Priorities: Haste > Versatility > Mastery>=Crit but still wear your highest ilvl pieces except for your necklace and ring slots if your lower item level pieces have leech.. NOTE: If you’re outgearing the content and/or not min-maxing dps then Haste > Mastery > Versatility > Crit.
Holy paladin damage is taking a hit in 9.1 with the spec receiving an 8% nerf to all damage output on top of Ashen Hallow, Judgement and Hammer of Wrath damage reduced by an additional 10%. Whilst these changes to tone down paladin damage output, this spec will continue to dominate other healers when it comes to passive damage output (only beaten by a good Kyrian Restoration Shamans) whilst preserving its status as the best burst healer dps in the game.
Paladin’s are also receiving some changes to their healing with Infusion of Light now granting Holy Light to generate 1 holy power (2 if used on your Beacon of Light; does not stack with inflorescence of the sunwell). Additionally, Flash of Light’s healing has been increased by 20% and Crusader Strike’s mana cost has increased to 11% of base mana from 9%.
These changes, in conjunction with the nerf to the Crusader’s Might talent going from 1.5 seconds of reduction on Holy Shock to 1, do not change your playstyle drastically. The level 15 talent row has become more interesting with Light’s Hammer being your go-to option for most fights; with it providing great on demand healing when paired up with Avenging Wrath. For more mobile fights, Bestow Faith is a competitive option which increases your holy power generation by 5 per minute whilst offering a small boost to your overall throughput.
New Covenant Legendaries:
Radiant Embers: is the new Venthyr covenant specific legendary in 9.1 that increases its duration and decreases it if you move out of your Ashen Hallow. This legendary has incredible potential with you being able to burst heal for 20 seconds every 155 seconds (2 minutes and 35 seconds) with moving out of hallow after your Avenging Wrath has expired or surpassed 20 seconds duration. Its biggest downside is that mechanics can ruin your burst window if you’re forced to move out of your Ashen Hallow earlier than you want, thus planning your cooldowns around timings of mechanics is even more important than ever when using this legendary.
Divine Resonance: is the new Kyrian covenant specific legendary in 9.1 that automatically casts a holy shock every 5 seconds for 30 seconds after using Divine Toll. Currently the legendary only casts these additional Holy Shock’s if you’re targeting an enemy/friendly unit regardless of who you cast Divine Toll on. Thus the healing portion of this legendary will require you to manually target a friendly player before each 5 second interval to force the automatic Holy Shock to go on a friendly player and swapping between other injured friendly players will be required to triage heal with this legendary.
Seasons of Plenty: is the new Night-Fae covenant specific legendary in 9.1 that after 10 seconds of initial application, it boosts the effectiveness of the currently applied seasons buff by 100% for 10 seconds. Whilst this is an interesting legendary with potential for funny dps padding strategies using Blessing of Summer or Blessing of Autumn on dps, this won’t see any use for raid progression orientated Holy Paladins.
Duty-Bound Gavel: is the new Necrolord covenant specific legendary in 9.1 that simply gives your Vanquisher’s Hammer an additional charge and buffs the next two spenders (from its baseline of 1). The legendary is rather unimaginative but is a healthy boost to Necrolord Holy Paladin’s throughput should you decide to drop Shock Barrier for more on demand burst healing.
Legendary Changes:
Inflorescence of the Sunwell now gives Holy Light a 30% chance to generate 2 Holy Power when it consumes Infusion of Light. Unfortunately this does not increase the viability of the legendary or the Holy Light spam build but rather nerfs it inadvertently due to removing the 60% increase to Holy Light’s throughput with Infusion of Light.
Shadowlands changes for paladins:
Aura’s have now returned!
Crusader Aura, Devotion Aura, Concentration Aura and Retribution Aura.
Only one can be active at any one time and multiple paladins can’t stack the same aura. Concentration Aura is learnt at level 52 and Retribution Aura’s duration is upgraded by 4 seconds at level 56.
New abilities:
Turn Evil: has returned and is currently a niche crowd control. Be wary of using this in dungeons as the crowd controlled mob will run away from where you applied Turn Evil, potentially pulling more mobs towards your group.
Hammer of Wrath: Generates 1 holy power and becomes usable during Avenging Wrath after level 58 with rank 2 Hammer of Wrath.
Every Paladin specialization has access to the following Holy Power spenders:
Shield of the Righteous (Requires an equipped shield) and Word of Glory.
Miscellaneous Changes:
Crusader Strike now costs 9% base mana for every spec which equates to 900 mana at level 60.
Avenging Wrath and Holy Avenger are now off the global cooldown.
Retribution has Blessing of Sacrifice and Consecration baseline.
Changes to Holy Paladins in Shadowlands
Holy Power is now an additional resource you need to manage and stacks up to 5.
The base cooldown of Holy Shock is now 7.5 seconds (down from 9). It generates 1 Holy Power and its cooldown reduction will continue to scale with haste.
Bestow Faith: now generates 1 holy power after it heals.
Infusion of Light has been reworked to reduce the cost of your next Flash of light by 30% or increase your next Holy Light by 30%.
Beacon of Light has received multiple changes with it no longer refunding mana. Instead, Holy Light and Flash of light now generate 1 Holy Power when cast on a player with Beacon of Light. Additionally, its healing transfer is increased to 50%, from 40%.
Word of Glory has returned and requires 3 Holy Power to use, whilst Light of Dawn has been reworked, requiring 3 Holy Power to use and now incurs no cooldown.
Aura Mastery: Interacts with your currently selected aura;
- Devotion Aura: Increases its damage reduction from 3% to 15% for every affected ally.
- Concentration Aura: Provides immunity to interrupt and silence affects.
- Crusader Aura: Increases mount speed increase from 20% to 60% for the 8-second duration of Aura Mastery.
- Retribution Aura: Increases the duration of the Avenging Wrath proc by 6 seconds if someone dies within the 8 second Aura Mastery period.
Below is a detailed guide for how to play Holy Paladin throughout pre-patch in a raid setting.
Beacon of Light
Place Beacon of Light on the target most in danger of dying without sustained healing. Usually, that will be a tank. On many fights, it’s worth the GCD to swap your beacon from an inactive tank to an active one, or to a non tank who will take heavy sustained damage.
Holy Shock
Avoid delaying Holy Shock. Use Holy Shock to triage heal injured allies, who require an immediate heal to live, and to apply Glimmer of Light to allies who will take damage within the next 30 seconds. If no one needs immediate healing or Glimmer of Light, Holy Shock and enemy for DPS.
The most common mistake Holy Paladins make is delaying Holy Shock. Never start a cast if Holy Shock will become available during the cast. Avoid using an instant spell if Holy Shock will become available during the GCD of the instant spell, unless it is extremely important--e.g. you will overcap Holy Power.
In general, you should avoid overwriting Glimmer of Light. Try to Holy Shock targets without Glimmer of Light--assuming they will take damage within 30 seconds--in order to increase your Glimmer coverage and gain more value from the talent. However, don’t let someone die just because they already had Glimmer when you could have saved them with Holy Shock!
In general, I prioritize Holy Shock as follows:
1. Player who will die in the next GCD without a heal regardless of whether they have Glimmer of Light.
2. Player who will take sustained damage over the next 30 seconds and does not already have Glimmer of Light
3. Player who is injured and does not already have Glimmer of Light.
4. Player who will take damage over the next 30 seconds even if they already have Glimmer of Light, to refresh the buff.
5. Enemy targets.
Holy Power
Light of Dawn does more healing than Word of Glory if it will hit 5 injured targets. But because Light of Dawn transfers to Beacon of Light at half the rate of Word of Glory, Word of Glory does more healing than Light of Dawn if Light of Dawn will hit 4 or fewer injured targets.
Take advantage of the 5 Holy Power cap to pool Holy Power for when it can do the most healing. If you have 3 Holy Power and Light of Dawn can hit 5 injured targets, by all means cast Light of Dawn. But if you have 3 Holy Power and Light of Dawn will only hit 3 injured targets, just pool for a few seconds waiting for 5 injured targets. You don’t need to spend until you are at 5 and about to overcap by generating a sixth.
If you are about to overcap Holy Power and no healing is necessary, you can spend the Holy Power on Shield of the Righteous for additional damage.
Crusader Strike
With Crusader’s Might, each cast of Crusader Strike reduces the cooldown of Holy Shock by 1.5 seconds. Keep Crusader Strike on cooldown to maximize your cooldown reduction on Holy Shock. But as long as one charge is on cooldown, you are not losing any uses and can bank the second charge for future cooldown reduction.
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Crusader Strike both consumes a GCD and reduces the cooldown of Holy Shock by 1.5 seconds, so you should not cast Crusader Strike if Holy Shock’s remaining cooldown is less than 1.5 seconds plus 1 GCD. If you do, you are wasting a portion of the cooldown reduction of Crusader’s Might. Instead, you should cast any non-Crusader Strike GCD, then Holy Shock, then use the Crusader Strike for full cooldown reduction.
Judgment of Light
Cast Judgment on cooldown when Judgment of Light charges are being consumed. If the charges on the boss have not been consumed, but will be a little while after Judgment comes off cooldown, it’s worth waiting for those charges to be consumed before casting Judgment. For example, if the boss has 15 stacks of Judgment of Light and Judgment is off cooldown, but the boss will damage the entire raid in 5 seconds, it is better to hold judgement until right after the damage event. That way all 40 stacks heal, instead of only 25 with the previous 15 having been wasted.
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Hammer of Wrath
Hammer of Wrath does no healing, but it generates 1 holy power for zero mana. If no one needs healing, use it on any target under 20% health for increased dps and to bank holy power for future healing.
Light of the Martyr
Light of the Martyr does not transfer healing to your Beacon of Light, and loses half the upfront healing it does by injuring you. This makes it significantly weaker than any of your other heals. However, Light of the Martyr has three use cases. First, if you are unable to stand still to cast, your instant casts are on cooldown, and someone needs healing, you can Light of the Martyr them. Second, because Light of the Martyr does its healing at the beginning of the GCD (while Flash of Light heals at the end) if someone will die before a GCD can complete you can cast Light of the Martyr to save their life. Third, if your Beacon target is taking extremely heavy damage, Light of the Martyr will do more to keep them alive than Flash of Light spam since Beacon transfers aren’t a consideration.
The most common mistake is to cast Light of the Martyr when you could have cast a superior healing spell. It is also common, although much less egregious, to never cast Light of the Martyr even in the rare situations when it is appropriate.
Rule of Law
Rule of Law is an extraordinary spell, giving Holy Paladins the unique ability to heal targets up to 60 yards away. In every encounter, you should anticipate situations in which you need to heal targets more than 40 yards away, and reserver at least one charge of Rule of Law for those uses.
Rule of Law also increases your healing on anyone who is more than 10 yards away from you. If your targets aren’t stacked with you, and you need to do a lot of healing, use Rule of Law.
Sanctified Wrath
Rule of Law is an extraordinary spell, giving Holy Paladins the unique ability to heal targets up to 60 yards away. In every encounter, you should anticipate situations in which you need to heal targets more than 40 yards away, and reserver at least one charge of Rule of Law for those uses.
Sanctified Wrath both increases your healing and changes your rotation. Your priority remains the same, but during Sanctified Wrath the cooldown of Holy Shock is reduced significantly.
Your priority remains the same: Holy Shock on cooldown, use Crusader Strike to acquire more Holy Shocks, spend Holy Power on Light of Dawn, and fill all GCDs without delaying Holy Shock, Crusader Strike, or overcapping Holy Power.
You can fit 1 Crusader Strike between Holy Shocks, or 2 spells that aren’t Crusader Strike. This is important because if you cast something other than Crusader Strike after a Holy Shock, then Crusader STrike comes off cooldown and you cast it, you have completely wasted the cooldown reduction from Crusader’s Might, thereby losing future Holy Shocks and Holy Power. You would have been able to cast Holy Shock the following GCD whether you cast Light of Dawn, Judgment, Holy Prism, Consecration, Flash of Light, Light of the Martyr, or nothing at all--and all of those options are better than wasting the Crusader Strike.
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Accordingly, during Avenging Wrath you should Holy Shock, Crusader Strike, Holy Shock. While Crusader Strike is recharging, weave in Light of Dawn to dump Holy Power along with a second GCD of your choice, such as Judgment or Flash of Light.
Aura Mastery
Use Aura Mastery with Devotion Aura to mitigate dangerous hard-hitting mechanics in the encounter. It’s best paired with mechanics that prevent the raid from stacking. If the raid can stack Power Word Barrier or Spirit Link Totem are better, but when the raid is spread Aura Mastery is one of the only cooldowns that will help everyone.
DPS
For single target DPS, cast Hammer of Wrath on cooldown->Judgment on cooldown->Holy Shock on cooldown->Crusader Strike on cooldown->Consecration. Spend holy power on Shield of the Righteous.
For AOE DPS, maintain Consecration on the mobs, then use Holy Shock to apply Glimmer of Light to as many targets as you can, while also weaving in Hammer of Wrath and Judgment on cooldown.
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The cooldown of Consecration is shorter than its duration, so be careful not to overcast it. Only cast it as necessary to refresh before it expires, or to reapply to mobs that have moved out of the original ground effect.