Updated Holy Gear Guide?

[Kellel]

Okay, I know that this forum is not "Main Healadin" but I figure there are more than a few of you swapping roles between tanking and healing so I may as well ask.

I've been doing more and more raiding and I'm finding, especially with my guild, that with all the craftable gear our there, gearing up a tank is easier than ever and has led to a surplus of tanks on my realm and even in my guild (granted "good" tanks are still rare . I used to be asked to heal on a daily basis, and it is quickly becoming a semi-hourly basis lol. I'm thinking that I may just bite the bullet and get familiar with healing so I'm ready if and when they ever roll out the Dual Spec feature.

Once upon a time there was a fantastic holy gear guide for TBC on these forums. I have been collecting pally healing gear in raids whenever I have the chance, but I'd still like some input from people with more experience than I as to what gear I can have crafted or pick up with the rep I've already ground out to get me healing heroics asap.

Any input would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[Trueth]

If you are holy spec, your three focus stats should be Int, Spell Power and Crit. Haste and Mana/5 should be secondary.

If you are Prot and healing, you should focus on Int, Spell Power and Mana/5. Crit is secondary. Haste can actually be problematic.

[Mishakal]

Put "Banana Shoulders" into google...

You should be able to track down a blog thats great for Holy Paladin.

If we get dual-specs you should be gearing as a normal holy paladin would and she does very good gear/enchant/gems guides.

She is also my guild leader /lol. bias not really

[Spectrum]

I'm looking at building a holy set for the times we need the extra healing and only a single tank.

I always though crit and MP5 would be good due to our increased heal on crit talent and not having mana regen elsewhere. Intellect and SP go without saying.

[Egtheridon]

I've found mp5 to be a wasted stat on holy paladin gear, int>everything else pretty much then just go haste=crit=spellpower.

Due to Divine plea and replenishment, talents that give spellpower from intelect and it also increasing our crit, intelect is by far the best stat. Pre-wotlk, there was a balance, now not so much.

With my current holy set, i've used this gearing method and reached buffed almost 30k mana,41 percent holy crit(47 holy light), 420ish haste, and during malygos twenty five I can holy light/holy shock with out mana issues the entire duration of phase one and two, same with patchwork.

Avoid mp5 unless you have a really bad piece, but do not gem for it(i put j/c epics in blue slots, and don't bother with socket bonus, if any other blue)

[sherck]

A few observations from a full time Holy...

1. The above mentioned link is http://www.bananashoulders.com/2008/12/09/pre-raid-holy-paladin-gear-list-v1/ It is excellent with lots of options to fill out your gear set if the right option will not drop in an instance.

2. Stay away from the crafted Spell Power Plate. They suck, IMO. There are a multitude of quested choices, BoE world drops or Rep rewards that can fill out your set.

3. The above method of "Int before all else" may work once you can get the epics to get you to 30k mana....but until then, I think you still need to balance some of your stats. Flash of Light and Sacred Shield are still your friends and benefit greatly from Spell Power and Crit. I agree that Intellect is, by far, the most important and every piece needs to have it in good amounts (which is why some of the crafted SP plate sucks), but when you are building your set, you need to balance some.

Int --> Spell Power --> Crit --> Haste --> Stamina. Those are the only stats you should be looking at in gear. MP5 is largely wasted; your mana regen is either the Illumination talent (powered by Crit) or Divine Plea (powered by Intellect). Stam is needed because your complete aggro drop only works once every 3 min and you need to be able to take a hit or three (obviously from a non-Raid boss) until the tank gets a mob off you. You can keep casting Hand of Salvation on yourself if needed but that takes up lots of GCD which are needed for other things.

2. The only faction Epics that are good for Healdins are from the Argent Crusade (Helm of Purified Thoughts at Revered and Signet of Hopeful Light at Exalted). You will want Revered from the Kirin Tor for the SP/Crit Arcanum as well as a blue belt if you don't have better (Girdle of the Warrior Magi). Revered with a couple other factions will get you some blue gear (Warsong Stormshield with Horde Expedition; Totemic Purificaiton Rod with The Kalu'ak) if you don't have better. Honored with the Kirin Tor gets you the Shroud of Dedicated Research and Honored with the Argent Crusade gets you the Standard Issue Legguards. That is about it for factions....except for the shoulder scripts, of course.

3. Quested items are going to be tricky since you may have already completed the quests and taken the tank gear choice. Check Wowhead and see if there is good stuff you have not yet done. There are some excellent pieces in Icecrown (Pauldrons of Morbidus, Girdle of Eternal Memory).

4. My "just hit level 80" healing set will consist of the following. All are obtained from quests, rep vendors or are BoE world drops that I got off the AH and seem to pretty much always be there on my server:

Head: Helm of Purified Thoughts (rep vendor Argent Crusade Revered with TBC Arcanum of Renewal, Ember Skyflare Diamond and Runed Scarlet Ruby)

Neck: Dragon Prow Necklace (world drop BoE off AH) [[Has Spirit on it. There are a lot of choices but I am lazy and this was cheap. Great Spell Power amount on it.]]

Shoulders: Pauldrons of Morbidus (Icecrown quest chain reward with TBC Inscription of Faith)

Back: Shroud of Dedicated Research (rep vendor Kirin Tor Honored)

Chest: Patina-Coated Breastplate (world drop BoE off AH)

Wrist: Bands of Fading Light (world drop BoE off AH; Runed Bloodstone)

Hands: Web Winder Gloves (world drop BoE off AH)

Waist: Girdle of Eternal Memory (Icecrown quest chain reward; with BoE socket with Runed Bloodstone)

Legs: Standard Issue Legguards (rep vendor Argent Crusade Honored; with Azure Spellthread and Runed Bloodstone)

Feet: Slippers of the Mojo Dojo (Gun'Drak quest reward)

Weapon: Totemic Purification Rod (rep vendor The Kalu'ak Revered)

Shield: Warsong Stormshield (rep vendor Warsong Expedition Revered)

Ring: Signet of Hopeful Light (rep vendor Argent Crusade Exalted)

Ring: Ring of Temerity (Oculus quest reward)

Trinket: Badge of the Infiltrator (Zul'Drak quest chain reward)

Trinket: Mendicant's Charm (Grizzy Hills quest reward)

((I like Spell Power Trinkets))

Libram: Blessed Book of Nagrand (from TBC days....sigh....)

With this setup and proper enchants, I get 20.3k mana, 1635 Spell Power, 149 Crit rating (adds 3.25%), 331 Haste rating (10.09% Haste), 18.7k armor and 17k health.

And that is the moment I hit level 80 without Emblem or Heroic gear (or regular gear drops that may or may not ever drop for you).

Obviously, you can do better with drops, but this setup will let you heal any of the T7 Raid content just fine.

Cheers,

[Kellel]

dude, thanks a TON this is exactly what I was looking for!

[Egtheridon]

I would also recomend downgrading to non plate, there is such a lack of good itemized gear I find it easier to downgrade. The two pieces that i downgraded to for a long time was the revenant mail chest(leatherworking boe chest), and the exalted wyrmcrest cloth boots.

I personally hate downgrading but when your healing, one or two pieces won't kill you, and some of that gear is way too good.(The wyrmcrest boots especially socket/haste/sp/int/stam num num) Although the boe boots from twenty five man noth are occasoinally sold on the AH, and they imo are the best boots in the game.(Thats how i got mine) Also from heroics the best healing helm outside of naxx is from Heroic UK first boss its a leather helm(70ish int, 77crit, 91sp) and is planned to get nerfed in the patch, but till then i'd also point to that.

[majiben]

Picking up leather and mail gear without spirit can often be very useful for healing as a paladin and that type of gear seems more plentiful these days.

[oldsmurgle]

I was also looking for this the other day, thanks for posting for the rest of us. Ive gathered a mighty holy set from all the heroics ive run and extra badges. In addition, first week in naxx we cleared two wings and 3 pieces of spell power plate drop (i was the only pally).

biggest things ive seen most holy pallys agree on are the following:

Spirit is bad never gem for it

MP5 is meh and shouldnt be a priority, however alot of plate gear out there has it (blizz trying to tell us something?)

Get ~16-18k mana and use divine plea intelligently - you will have more than enough mana for 95% of the boss fights in heroics

Apperantly Holy Light Spam is now acceptable with the uber mana pools most holies have + libram + Divine Plea

Bananashoulders is an AMAZING site props to him/her

most importantly read up on all your spells you have when spec'd holy. blizzard seems to have really listened and made holy paladins pretty damn good in this expansion.

[Terlingua]

MP/5 is a better stat for prot healing than for holy healers.

[Kelaan]

MP/5 is a better stat for prot healing than for holy healers.

True. However, a LOT of the healing epics out there from heroics (which you can often get if the current healer has better or can't use that armor class) have less-than-perfect stats, yet are still upgrades. Haste and MP5 aren't all THAT bad, though you'll likely eventually upgrade to pieces with crit budgeted. Take it if it's an overall upgrade, even if the stats aren't perfect.

For example:

Wrists of ilevel 200:
All of these have 59 sp, and similar int (except pvp bracers). The difference is in the haste/crit/mp5 variations.

http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter= ... rs=1;crv=0
or, those that drop in heroics only:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter= ... 23;crv=0:0

PvP Bracers: 24 int, 59 sp, 14 mp5
Plate bracers: 38 int, 59 sp, 49 crit (Azjol-Nerub)
Cloth bracers: 38 int, 59 sp, 50 crit (Violet Hold)
Mail bracers: 36 int, 59 sp, 50 haste (Drak'tharon)
Leather bracers: 38 int, 59 sp, 36 crit, 28 spirit (Stratholme)
Cloth bracers: 38 int, 59 sp, 33 haste, 32 spirit

Naxx-10 bracers (and presumably other stuff) seem to have lower int, and item budget split across multiple flavors of bonus (e.g., sp/crit/mp5, rather than sp/crit). Overall, those are more efficiently budgeted, I expect.

For any of the ones that don't have spirit, I'd say grab it if you don't have better. Sure, haste isn't super-awesome. However, it DOES let you FoL 1% faster. It's not terribly bad.

For belts, it's a different variation. All have 76-77 spell power. Healing belts from heroics vary as follows:
plate: 51 int, 26 mp5
mail: 48 int, 26 mp5
leather: 51 int, 66 haste
cloth: 52 int, 64 crit

So, if you're going for crit-everywhere, you might not be wearing plate. It is likely that you'll see some of these almost no matter where you go, though. It might not be "optimal", but as a tank building a healing set it seems to be easier (in some ways) than questing / repping for them. I'm sure that building a healing set using ANY of these options is absolutely fine. Plate just lets you survive better.

edit: Damn, I kinda like the format of having a wowhead item-filtering link along with individual items. If I get some free time this weekend and am not lazy (stop laughing!), I'll see if I can put together a list like this of healing gear from heroics (or other non-raid sources).

[Dorvan]

So a question for those knowledgeable Holy folks out there. So on my first Naxx 10 I picked up 3 Holy pieces (yay WoW gods wanting me to be a healer), of which 2 were gloves:

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39306
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39228

The question is simple, which of these two items is better for healing as Holy? I think I've got an idea about the answer, but it'd be nice to get some confirmation from someone who actually knows what they're doing

[Sober]

First pair. Socket with SP or SP/Crit. Haste on gear is nice but as long as you keep judging at least once per minute for the haste buff I wouldn't take it over crit. There might be some fights where I would want extra haste though. That plus the badge/maexnna trinket which give haste should generally be more than enough.

Crit scales geometrically with itself as well which is insane (see the holy pally EJ thread).

[Kelaan]

OH! Great point about haste, I forgot all about the massive haste we can get for free. Plus, haste helps you spend mana faster, whereas crit helps you regen mana... or so they call it. I like to think of it as a discount, but it is still a massive mana source.