What they don't tell you upon hitting 70

Every paladin should know that they are generally viewed to be healers upon hitting 70. This comes to a shock to a few, but its the truth. Granted, there are a few places that will accept a tanking or retribution paladin, but those are the exception.

I switched to healing out of the desire to contribute to a guild that had some turn over just as I was hitting 70. My coworker left along with several senior members to a different server/guild. I choose to stay out of a desire to see if I'd be able to contribute and in order to give the guild a chance.

I learned we are indeed great healers. Upon being decently equiped, i've healed through kara with only 1 other paladin. That's pretty impressive, no fortitude buffs, etc. Just kings and light generally...it has worked out well.

However, I believe there is a huge dark secret that isn't shared with people that ding 70. This secret will set you back months in acquiring gear in what you most likely enjoy doing the most the first 69 levels (tanking/dps).

Upon hitting 70 and venturing into Kara, the best location for gear/badges bar-none...there are two types of plate. Plate that the warriors want, plate that the warriors don't want. If you take the high-road and respec to holy, the guild & these warriors will breath a sigh of relief...since you will be removing yourself from 66% of the drops.

Let me explain.

Plate falls into 3 categories. DPS. Tank. Spell.

Since warriors don't ever want to use the last, its called "Pally armor". However, that Pally armor is worthless to you if you desire to tank or DPS. It truthfully should be considered healing armor.

By being the 'good' team player and going holy, you will get the items that you would have gotten anyway had you remained DPS or Tank. The warriors will never want that stuff.

Meanwhile, *any* tank or DPS armor will always go to the warriors. If one is tanking, they get the dibs on the tank armor, plus the DPS will be for their 'off-set'. Trying to speak up that you need the DPS just as much as the warrior will fall on deaf ears the majority of the time.

So there is the dirty secret. Had you remained DPS (which you probably should have leveled as unless you instanced a lot) you'd be getting some nice DPS armor, sometimes defense (if tank already had it), and always the healing armor.

However, by going to healer you lose out on all by the paladin armor.

Healer thy be

New to the 2.4 patch appeared ornate & scaled armor for pallies in the outland. I had not read about this, it was only through browsing a quartermaster at thrallmar that I notced the armor. Doing a quick bit of research at www.wowwiki.com I found that this new armor, 'crusader', was added to give folks a chance in arenas. You are able to purchase with gold, and only need honored with each of the factions (cenarion, thrallmar/honorhold, lower city, shat'ar, and keepers of time.

Fortunately, I had just gotten lower city & shat'ar in good shape, I wanted to be sure not to miss on any daily heroic runs there.

So, a quick gathering of the pieces, some green gems along with the nice meta +12 agility, +3% crit damage, I was rocking & ready to go. Gorehowl enchanted with savagery, I can't justify mongoose at the moment. I went to kara to turn in my ring, then found a glitch in the game. It still thought I was a protector, although I had the violet ring of the arch-magi. A ticket later to a GM and he informed me to destroy the ring, get the replacement (protector), then I'd be able to exchange it for the master assassin.

However, the guild leader requested I return to holy. I understand the lack of healing we had online, plus I'm the experienced pally healer, so a summon to SSC, a portal to silvermoon, a respec, a visit to the bank, then a summon back to silvermoon, I was back in business for the run.

Of course, it was my first visit to SSC. Hydross has been down'd sever times by our guild, but we had a lot of new folks, new to even level 70, and while we got him to 5% several times, he wouldn't die.

I did not remember to turn on logging for the run, but I did have Gruul from the night before. On that run, I still notice about 1/2 our DPS has 10% of greater miss rate. I emailed our GL after reviewing the wws information, then forward him the link & some comments.

We'll get there.

Enchanted

Well, I can now raid without the fear of someone wondering why my epics aren't enchanted. Got +healing for hands, spell thread for legs, and +healing for MW. I'm now pretty much top tier for our guild when it comes to healing, so in a good position.

We down'd Gruul 2nd try. Honestly, DPS again is killing us. I have no clue why folks can't manage more than 1 thing at a time when playing. I watch several individuals standing in Cave-In as they continue to attack away (with 10-20 miss rate) and *sigh*.

+Hit folks. +Hit. Its one thing attacking equal level mobs, but level 73 requires some dedication in what you gem + having right points spent. I blame arena...lots of people think they are geared right, or just don't care hoping noone calls them on it. Its something our guild leaders hopefully will start enforcing.

Arena

My 3 vs 3 arena team ended up on the positive side of things for a change last night. Our group consists of a BM Hunter (Dethelick), a shadow priest (Shuzzah) and myself. I have been gimp'ing our team for past couple weeks as a tank, but now with the Shockadin setup, I was an effective healer while contributing some nice burst damage.

Our gear isn't too hot. Pretty much all tier 4 now along with some pvp items. I have found 4 piece pvp season 1 arena to be superior to tier 4. Enchants too are lacking...but that might be changing soon.

We have been surprised/amused by the tactic of hiding in your starting location...then a 'rush'? Our typical strategy is simply to drop a freeze trap and use that as 'home base'. It helps keep our group together, plus the fact we are all range...no need to try to chase folks down.

I also have settled on always nuking the healer first. Interrupts, fear, etc...anything to disrupt their healer then down 'em is the focus. We tend to always win if we manage to drop the healer...but our execution is a work in progress.

Healing to no Avail

Well,

Joined a run late tonight that had worked its way to Gruul himself. I threw everything I had at the main tanks...just wasn't enough. I kept the +3% crit to raid judged on him, its been my opinion that DPS is our guild's main liability. Folks gear for PVP and walk into a raid environment without getting their + hit up...and wonder why we can't down these bosses. Our tanks are very good, our healers well equiped with healbot or grid...but DPS...*sigh*.

I've found that Shockadin setup works rather nicely with soloing. I have enough abilities that something is normally off cooldown when taking out the random mob while questing or dropping out of the sky for a nice bit or ore.

Speaking of ore & mining...I seem to be making a ton of money after doing dailes and flying around on the epic. I have about 1800 gold. I think I got my flier just a week ago? I've shared 750 to a friend who helped me level my mining...so that's pretty amazing. I believe a good chunk comes from the reward of the dailies, the green level 70 items that I send to a pal to be disenchanted. Those mats I place on the AH along with any results from mining. Combined, its about 200 gold along with about 100 from questing, so 300 a day. Not bad for a couple hours worth of running around.

Shockadin

So, 15 gold later and only 1 new ability to pay for, I find Tannat now a shockadin. My master plan of being a tank has not worked out at all. Between all the shattered sun dailies and 25 man runs to Gruul's lair, I haven't found myself main or offtank.

My guild, Mistaken Identity, has a ton of prot warriors...so any raid or run seems to have plenty of folks available. There seems to be more DPS types in the game, so how to I best align my pally with the obvious need for effective soloing, arena, plus raiding? Enter the shockadin.

When 2.4 hit, I found my 4 piece gladiator set's bonus changed from hammer cooldown to +30% healing to holy shock, which was moot since I respec'd protection and didn't have holy shock.

Testing out the build I went with, now including holy shock, I found it heals for about 2k, crits 3k, which I'm very happy about. As a dps attack, seems to hits over 1k, crits about 2k. Judging level 1 consencrate + righteousness keeps a very steady of damage output, between judging, holyshock, etc...mobs fall down fast. Bonus is that my mana pool, something that was lacking with my tank gear, is back to 10k amount, health seems plenty at 9k unbuffed.

My healing/spell damage sits at 1450 for healing and 650 spell damage, without buffs. Flash of light is hitting for about 1600, criting for 2.4k, which I'm happy with.

I have neglected a lot of my enchants as I worked towards the epic flier, which I do say makes gathering ore & running to zones for dailies a very nice thing indeed. I find myself making about 200 gold a day without trying, plus adding about 1k of honor. My honor is sitting about 52k, which will be spent for retribution set upon the next season of arena. My arena points are at 2000, those too are being saved. I have 2 tokens for tier 4, hands and shoulders. I think season 1 gladiator as just as good for healing as those, so most likely they'll be cashed in for retribution. Gorehowl sits in the bank with a cheap counterweight just waiting to be released.

However, this will all be in another month. For near future & next few weeks, returning to the role as dedicated healer with some nice spell dps is the name of the game. I'll post a follow up with some impressions and numbers as the day pass.