Hi,
I used to play WoW back in the vanilla days (60 Resto DRD), and then for a little while in BC (70 Shammy, and a lowbie RET Pally up to 40), now Blizz gave me a free week to check out Cataclysm and I'm sucked in. Seeing as I'm two expansions behind the game is almost unrecognizable to me now. Anyways, there used to be such a thing as a "DPS" Holy paladin (or maybe a hybrid holy paladin is more accurate? dmg/heals) and this spec appeals to me. I enjoy healing, and I have done plenty of it in the previous versions, but having leveled a Resto druid in vanilla WoW I would really like to have more DPS then just straight holy offers. I'm getting mixed answers on the internet about shockadins, and I wondered if anyone here played one.
I realize this is not a raid spec, and when I get there I would respec 100% heals holy. But I'd like to be able to level efficiently and keep my role as a healer in groups, as well as play some decent PvP along the way (DPS Holy used to be pretty sick in BGs). So my question is this: Is the Holy Damage spec still viable 1-85? Will I still be able to do what I'm hoping the spec offers?
Am I just going to be frustrated?
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As Holy your only sources of damage will be Judgement (really weak) along with Holy Shock and Exorcism. Holy Shock has a cooldown and Exorcism will be incredibly mana expensive until level you get the talents for it at level 31.
And by the time you reach level 30 you are able to purchase Dual Spec for 10 gold, allowing you to have a Holy Spec for group work and a Ret set for solo work. It will be far more efficient to have a dual spec than to attempt to level completely in Holy.
If you decide to do the first 30 levels in Holy Spec, I recommend Arbiter of the Light, Judgements of the Pure, Clarity of Purpose and Daybreak. The talents wont make a huge difference to your healing early on, but those can make a big difference to your damage.
TL;DR I dont recommend the Shockadin approach
And by the time you reach level 30 you are able to purchase Dual Spec for 10 gold, allowing you to have a Holy Spec for group work and a Ret set for solo work. It will be far more efficient to have a dual spec than to attempt to level completely in Holy.
If you decide to do the first 30 levels in Holy Spec, I recommend Arbiter of the Light, Judgements of the Pure, Clarity of Purpose and Daybreak. The talents wont make a huge difference to your healing early on, but those can make a big difference to your damage.
TL;DR I dont recommend the Shockadin approach
2 posts
Thank you,
Like I said I'm two expansions back I didn't realize that there was dual spec, but that makes this much easier.
Anyway, I logged onto my horde pally and respec'd him for Holy DMG, then did some plaguelands quests and ran 3 instances. My damage was awesome, I ripped through solo content and supplied awesome DPS for the group (Exorcism crit for 5 or 6 in a row a few time times at 800-900+ a hit) as well as healed for the last instance with no trouble what so ever, without switching specs. I'd say at least for his level the Holy Shock spec is pretty sweet, and I enjoyed the little bit I got to try it. Just though I throw my 2c back now that I tried it at a higher level.
Survivability was also awesome. Its not an easy spec, but I found it to be tons of fun and I would recommend it.
Like I said I'm two expansions back I didn't realize that there was dual spec, but that makes this much easier.
Anyway, I logged onto my horde pally and respec'd him for Holy DMG, then did some plaguelands quests and ran 3 instances. My damage was awesome, I ripped through solo content and supplied awesome DPS for the group (Exorcism crit for 5 or 6 in a row a few time times at 800-900+ a hit) as well as healed for the last instance with no trouble what so ever, without switching specs. I'd say at least for his level the Holy Shock spec is pretty sweet, and I enjoyed the little bit I got to try it. Just though I throw my 2c back now that I tried it at a higher level.
Survivability was also awesome. Its not an easy spec, but I found it to be tons of fun and I would recommend it.
Yeah, after seeing Arex suggest it in the general forum, I did some research and found a guide on wowhead for the Shockadin spec. Got my paladin up 7 levels last night as a Shockadin and I really enjoyed it. Killing demons in Ashenvale in particular was a lot of fun. Honestly, I didn't have too many mana issues. Until you get that Exorcism talent maxed out at level 31, you do have to be careful though. What I found works the best is making sure to start out with Exorcism, then casting Holy Shock and Judgment. If that doesn't kill it, start auto-attack until the mob either dies or HS and Judgment come off of CD.
Leveling as holy is..slow and tedious at best since Cata changes. It was like that as well in Wrath but I never had mana issues and never had to worry about dying. The only downside now is the mana problems since regen is a lot slower now, and also you will take forever to burn anything down. Ret or Prot is a better choice, stick with Ret until you get consecration at least then leveling as Prot will be a lot faster and easier since you will have the survivability there. Now if you are dungeon crawling, leveling as Holy will be faster, just be prepared for going through the same instance over and over and over..and over..
Necro Warning: This post occurred more than thirty days after the prior, and may be a necropost.
You must be speaking from a higher level perspective, because so far at 35 I haven't had that experience at all. Granted I also have four spellcaster heirlooms equipped, and have not been hesitant to equip cloth or leather gear with proper stats on it. Maybe that's your issue? I kill things in 3 spells. I start off with Exorcism, and then holy shock, and either exorcism again or judgment and the mob is dead.
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It will be far more efficient to have a dual spec than to attempt to level completely in Holy.
Mine's at 38 and with zero heirloom gear I've been doing fine - pull with Ex, follow up with shock, drop a judgement and on the off chance the mob's still standing, then just melee it down the rest of the way - cake.
I leveled my paladin all the way from 10 to 70 as holy. It was a bit of a pain in the **** to solo stuff, but not as bad that I would've rather hit myself with a fork and smash my head against the wall or something. But the great thing nowadays is that if you enjoy running dungeons, you'll have short waiting times for them.
Back in the days when I was leveling up my paladin there were no cool things such as the LFD-thingy.
Back in the days when I was leveling up my paladin there were no cool things such as the LFD-thingy.
Well if you want to talk about "Back in the days" there was almost no fun way to level a Paladin. Every mob fight was hoping that Seal of Command procced and judging on cooldown. I went 11 points in Holy just to have consecration so I could have another button to hit. No Crusader Strike, No Divine Storm, No Templar's Verdict, Exorcism had a cast time and only worked on Undead/Demons, Holy Wrath only worked on Undead/Demons, Hammer of Wrath had a casttime and sucked, You had to put points in Holy to get Consecration... Prot was cool cause you could live as long as your mana lasted and enemies would just kill themselves on your shield. This is why Seal of Command used to hit like a truck with a good slow weapon, so when it DID proc, (I believe it was at 7-8 PPM) it would hurt someone pretty good.
I don't get why some people want to go back to the "good ol' days"...
I don't get why some people want to go back to the "good ol' days"...
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I don't get why some people want to go back to the "good ol' days"...
I never said I wanted to go back to those days. And I don't know if you were saying that I said so.
I agree that it was quite horrible to level a paladin back then, but somehow it always has been and probably always will be my favourite class. But that probably is because it was my first character, not because of the actual gameplay-experience back in Vanilla. But I can remember that I've loved playing my paladin ever since TBC, on all specs.
Edited, Jun 6th 2011 4:22pm by smunks
Nah I know you didnt say that, I was just saying that in general. And I'm pretty much the same way about Paladins. Been playing a Paladin all throughout Vanilla, first on a Human to 60 then making a whole new one once BC came out so that I could be Horde.
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first on a Human to 60 then making a whole new one once BC came out so that I could be Horde.
I first started as a paladin on alliance, because I started the game with a good friend of mine.
After he didn't have time for the game anymore (Somewhere in mid-wotlk) I started a BE paladin on another realm to play with my other RL friends.
And now my friend who quit came back, and as I want to play with all of them, but they're not willing to all transfer to a same realm, I'm playing two paladins at the moment.
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