So, as some of you may be aware, I applied to WoW.com to be their new holy paladin columnist. Today, in their paladin column, The Light and How to Swing It, they announced that Chase Christian had been selected to be the new holy paladin columnist.
This gentleman appears to also be the rogue behind their Encrypted Texts column. It appears, after a little research, that Mr. Christian has levelled a holy paladin because his guild needed one.
Honestly, I don’t think someone who has spent the last X number of years raiding as a rogue is going to be able to do a good job in terms of helping the paladin community with the holy side of things. I have no idea how long he’s had a paladin, but I know that I don’t know all the subtleties of all of my alts. I don’t even know all the subtleties of a hunter. But I’m fairly confident that I know my stuff when it comes to a holy paladin. Much like Mr. Christian probably knows the insides and outs of being a rogue.
Out of curiousity, I listened to a few minutes of the WoW Insider show today after it had been broadcast, as Mr. Christian was a guest. They mentioned that he’ll be writing the new holy paladin column and asked what he thought he would bring to the column.
His reply was something along the lines of “well I don’t know how many times I can say stack intellect in every socket…”
Uh? Sure, most paladins do stack int in every socket. I’m no exception. But there are other raiding holy paladins who don’t stack int — they stack spellpower. They are the Flash of Light spammers who use Seal of Light and its associated Glyph and stack spellpower and basically use that. So you have a Holy Light bombing paladin, stacking int and being responsible for the big incoming heals, and you have the Flash of Light spammer who is responsible for keeping the 1-second FoL heals coming constantly.
Further, what about new-to-80 holy paladins? You can’t just stack intellect the instant you hit 80, or even while levelling. You need to hit about 2000 spellpower first and THEN work on your intellect, or else your heals are just not going to be strong enough to keep your targets up. What does it matter if you have 25,000 mana if your Holy Light doesn’t hit for enough to keep your tank up?
Yes, I realize that Mr. Christian’s comment on the WoW Insider show was likely a joke, but I am not at all convinced that he’s the right person for the job. Maybe I’m not either, but I’ve raided as a holy paladin for all of Burning Crusade and all of Wrath and chunks of pre-BC. I think I know how my class works.
Having said that, what on earth was the point of WoW.com calling for applications for the holy paladin column if they were going to consider an internal candidate? I’m not a business genius, but convention has it, in many businesses, that a job goes around internally first, then external applicants get their shot.
I have no idea how many people applied to the holy paladin column, but let’s imagine (and I think I’m probably low-balling it) that 150 people applied.
That’s 150 people who took the time to sit down and come up with:
– 10 sample topics
– 1 sample article of about 500 words
– 1 pretend letter to Blizzard about their class/spec of about 1000 words
That doesn’t include your background and why you think you’d do a good job.
I spent approximately 4-5 hours on my application, re-reading, re-writing, editing and trying to cut my sample article down from 920 words to 500. (I got it down to 606 and honestly couldn’t snip another word.)
Assume not everyone of those estimated 150 people spent 4-5 hours on their application. Imagine 150 people spent an average of 2 hours on their applications. I don’t think that’s too far-fetched, because you needed approximately 1500 words in terms of sample writing in order to apply.
That’s probably 300-some hours of work. That’s 12 days and 12 hours of work by what I think is an obscenely low number of potential applicants.
So you’re telling me that WoW.com basically wasted two weeks’ of people’s collective time and then decided to get the rogue writer to do the holy paladin column?
Nice.
I’ll read a couple of Mr. Christian’s paladin columns, but if I am not absolutely blown away by his work, I’m going to start going elsewhere for my World of Warcraft news.
In the meantime, look for some holy paladin-specific material to crop up right here.
Just wanted to say that I just ran across your site (via a link from your comment on Righteous Orbs), and I’m really looking forward to seeing your perspectives on holy-paladanism. I’m a rogue-turned-holy-pally, and have been looking for some good resources in learing to play my class better, for entry into the raiding scene. Just something about this article tells me that I might have found the right place. =^)
Hey Agnostique, thanks for your comment. :) While you wait for me to get my sort of “guide” started up, you should totally check out Rohan at Blessing of Kings and Siha at Banana Shoulders. I consider them to be two of the most knowledgeable paladins who have blogs.
BoK: http://blessingofkings.blogspot.com/
Banana Shoulders: http://www.bananashoulders.com/
Having said that, is there anything in particular you’re especially curious about? Specs or glyphs or enchants or even when to use what spell?
Thanks, I’ll take a look at both of those!
I think what I’m looking for is about an intermediate-level guide to pally healing at 80. Somewhere between “This is Flash of Light and this is Holy Light” and the Elitist Jerks forums. Right now I’m doing fine with my two spells and Beacon of Light, and I just “discovered” Sacred Shield (I think, most WoW stuff is blocked from work so I can’t look it up) last week for the HoT. So I’ve been grinding
badgesemblems and gearing up and pretty much holding my own in 5-man heroics. But then I look on EJ, and see how they talk about Flash of Light focus vs Holy Light focus, and I’m wondering how should I modify my build/playstyle to focus toward either one, which one works for what content level, and at what point I should switch between the two. Or if I should even bother with that at this point.I’ve got a basic cookie-cutter spec at the moment, and haven’t looked at it very much to date to see where to tweak it, and IIRC I picked up some recommended glyphs. But I hadn’t put a lot of thought into them at the start because I didn’t know enough to modify them. Now, some talents/glyphs are obvious as to why they’re important, but some of them are not. Maybe something like a comparison of available glyphs/talents (the non-obvious ones), and why you would choose one over the other.
Basically, I’ve got the concept of raiding (as DPS) down from my main, and I’m pretty much coming to terms with the healing game and how it’s played, and I want to start figuring out how to tailor my toon and gameplay to succeed when I get called up to the majors. Which eventually will happen, as my guild is wanting me to join them in Icecrown eventually. Something about too many rogues, blah blah blah. ;^)
Agnostique (the agnostic Paladin)
Hey Ag, thanks for letting me know what you’re looking for! I’m amused that I got my first holy how-to post up and it seems to be covering what you were looking for. :)
I think that there’s a big hole in terms of what’s covered out there. There are a ton of sites that tell you how to spec. Then there’s EJ, that tells you X, Y and Z, in max-level gear and content.
I know that when I was in Burning Crusade, I was beyond the “spec this way” advice and I definitely wasn’t in max-level gear and content. Intermediate advice would have been super-useful at the time, and I can see that it would be super-useful now as well.
What’s more, I’m rather detail-oriented (as if you can’t tell!) and I WILL explain the ins and outs of something. I won’t just say “these are the glyphs you need”, because that’s only marginally helpful. I will tell you why you need them. (I actually just edited my latest post to explain why Glyph of Holy Light is mandatory because I realized that I hadn’t done that.)
My goal is to help educate people so that they’re making smart decisions later on as opposed to constantly needing someone’s advice. Looking for advice isn’t bad, but a lot of people don’t bother to look for it.
As to FoL vs. HL, it really depends on your group makeup. I think I’ll talk more about FoL vs. HL builds in a few posts from now, but basically, the standard is for paladins to stack intellect and bomb Holy Light and do anything within their power to extend that mana pool. If you already have two holy paladins who do this admirably in your guild’s Icecrown raids, you may want to look into the FoL build/focus, because it’s pretty rare that you need 3 holy paladins and 3 beacons all dropping 20k critical Holy Lights on the raid. If you spec FoL, you’ll be gemming for spellpower pretty exclusively, so that’s something to take into consideration as you start acquiring gear that will accompany you into ICC. :)