Maglor here. Biggest excuse of a Pally there is.
I want to start by talking about two areas that pallies do almost all the time – healing and dps.
First of all, pally dps sucks. Unless we are fighting undead and then only in non-raid situations. Yea, Sony (now Daybreak) saw fit to nerf us for offensive powers. We do get some discs that can help, if we think carefully and apply it right, but we are never going to be the big time dps in a raid. But then, we never should be. Our focus is not on dps but on tanking, and healing.
Second of all, pally healing is not all that good normally. Individually it is mediocre at best. Pally heals will never come up to druid heals, let alone shammy or cleric heals. But it is not meant to be as good. But it is meant to be there and it is extremely versatile.
Paladins are the tanks that can heal. And that is our weakness, and our strength. But in a raid, we are rarely called upon to do any prime tanking. Oh we can, do not get me wrong. And there are times when we will be called upon to tank all hell out. But normally we are either pure healers or we are being asked to dps.
So why am I combining them? Simple. Unless a paladin is being called to do pure healing, they always combine healing and dps. We are known as the tanks that can heal but we are also the dps that can heal.
So let’s talk pally dps and healing.
First off, DPS. Pally dps is mainly a 2 handed weapon combined with some . Paladins have a few “offensives” that improve dps. Holyforge if you are fighting undead, but not much else. Oh sure, it is a minor improvement against the living, but it is designed for the undead so save it for them. But against everyone else, pallies have a number of offensives that work quite well.
You have the Second Spire of Holiness, a nice little dps increase. You have the Righteous line of discs, which give you 20 or so crits. You have Inquisitors Judgment, which gives you a number of crits. You have the Pureforge Discipline, which does for everything what Holyforge does for only undead. Intensity of the Resolute is a one shot per raid disc that is a nasty bit of offensive workmanship. And finally you have the big one – Valorous Rage, a nasty little bit of work that really improves your dps for about 2 minutes, with a 15 minute cooldown. This last one is definitely worth it.
In addition, you have a few nasty little direct damage spells and aa’s. Consecration, an anti-undead spell, and its line, actually works on the living. So do the various crush lines, though as those improve your agro you really do not want to use them much. Banestrike gives a nice little bit of damage – all damge helps. And of course, Reflexive Righteousness, which gives you a few fast and hard hits.
So, offensively, what should you be doing? Well, it depends. If you know that the mob should be dead real fast, you can blow all of your offensives and try to dish out some really impressive dps. Not that you will, tanks never do, but you can be respectable at least. If, however, you know that the mob will take some time, then you will want to stagger the discs and blasts. Long term thinking is likely better than short term thinking.
Now, HEALING. Paladins are the tanks that can heal. As a result, even when you are tanking, you need to keep healing spells up all the time. It is part of you and part of your abilities.
There are a number of healing and curing spells available to the Paladin. But when the paladin is focusing on DPS, most of them are relatively worthless. Of what use is the specific target heal or cure spell to the paladin when he or she is focusing on dpsing the mob? All it does is to slow down the damage the paladin can dish out.
For this reason, the paladin healing spell lineup should necessarily be limited to those which he can cast and heal others without causing him to break contact with the mob.
For this reason Splash is probably the best healing spell a pally can have in a raid. It is simple, AE targetable and most of all allows you to heal and cure almost the entire raid (if the members are close enough) without for one second removing your sword on the mob you are slice and dicing. True, a single pally splash is, well, lame. But when 4 or 5 paladins splash at the same time ... oh boy! They just cured and healed the whole raid -- at least those who are in range of their collective splashing!
You also want group heals and group cures, nothing else. Group cures (when they come out with them), group corruption cures, group heals, this is the healing blood of the paladin.
There are two more healing spells that a paladin should always have up. The Admonish and the Protective line of spells. These lines have the unique ability of healing the target of your target, i.e. the tank himself. And they also have a few other nice abilities. The Admonish line does some damage to the mob as well as heal the tank. The Protective line also heals the tank and at at the same time gives the tank a nice little armor buff. As every bit helps in keeping the tank up, these two lines are virtually required for a pally to have.
Finally, there is the Vindication line. No, it does not do any healing per se, it is a damage spell, but its real strength is that once cast it allows you to cast the next targetable or group heal spell as a twincast heal.
So, what spells should a pally use?
Well, considering that we can be called upon to offtank mobs that get away at any time, always have the Preservation line up – this armors you for a short time. Also have 3 stuns. I recommend three stuns that do NOT move the mobs when cast – some do so do not use them unless you have to. Also, a crush line is nice – but make sure it is the crush that is NOT tied to one of the stun lines. Of course, you will need the self-heal “Invigorating Steel”as well as the Protective and Admonish. And the Vindication. You need Splash, the most current one available. Have Consecration up, it is too useful. The rest should be group heals – the targetable group heal and the locked in group heal.
