Paladin + 4 priests

[Fuzzyboy]

I remember one of the most fun team compositions I played in TBC was Paladin + 4 holy/disc priests.

They were surprisingly fast to level because it will allow AEing of virtually all instances with holy nova once you outlevel it a bit (depending on when the next rank of holy nova would drop) and until mobs go grey.

Most instance trash mobs you can gather up on amounts of 10+ and holy nova spam. Paladin can round up mobs (blessing of freedom and divine shield works well). And bosses you can do with holy fire/smite. I don't recall if renew stack, but if it does, 4 renews on the paladin should keep him topped efficiently. Mind control works well for pseudo CC (and shackle of course when possible).

The paladin can be substituted for a warrior, although some synergy does go to waste (blessing, full res redundancy, DI, divine shield pulling etc.). Another advantage is that pretty much no mobs have resistance to holy spells. Threat is not an issue (since holy nova doesn't generate threat) and fade works as a backup in single target situations.

The composition worked for me well into TBC instances. I don't remember how it worked for endgame instances (Strath, Scholo, LBRS), but I do remember running BRD quite efficiently until I hit 60. It's also a spectacular farming setup, because of the speed you can clear instances with once properly geared.

Compared with a mage AE farming team, it actually works well because you don't have to keep distance (holy nova keeps you healed and never pulls aggro off the tank, since it doesn't generate threat).

It won't be my main team, but I do look forward to playing it!

(also, there's a good amount of fun to be had with both mind control and holy nova in world PVP)

[Apatheist]

Renew doesn't stack.

Holy nova costs from 185 mana at rank 1 to 750 mana at rank 6 and does negligible damage (7.14% coefficient.)

In your 20's-30's you'll be OOM in 3 GCD's and you definitely won't clear dungeons spamming holy nova.

There's actually a video of a guy farming with holy nova here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR-rfNddB3s). His talent build is entirely based on reducing holy nova cost and he's stacked intellect on all of his gear. He can cast holy nova 10 times before he's OOM -- hitting for around 200 damage per cast. That's 2000 damage plus crits before you're dry. To put that in context, the ogres in Dire Maul have around 14,000HP.

[Fuzzyboy]

Renew doesn't stack.

Holy nova costs from 185 mana at rank 1 to 750 mana at rank 6 and does negligible damage (7.14% coefficient.)

In your 20's-30's you'll be OOM in 3 GCD's and you definitely won't clear dungeons spamming holy nova.

There's actually a video of a guy farming with holy nova here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR-rfNddB3s). His talent build is entirely based on reducing holy nova cost and he's stacked intellect on all of his gear. He can cast holy nova 10 times before he's OOM -- hitting for around 200 damage per cast. That's 2000 damage plus crits before you're dry. To put that in context, the ogres in Dire Maul have around 14,000HP.

I can assure you that I did work. It's not just theorycrafting - I levelled a team of 1 paladin and 4 priests through SM, ZF and BRD, using just Holy Nova spam. Granted, this was during the TBC expansion (or WotLK - I'm not 100% sure), so I don't know if they did some changes to Holy Nova between 1.12 and then, but I did work - and exceedingly well.

I was never in DM with that team, so I can't say anything about that instance, but I was in BRD at similar level (50'ies - and the elite mobs there have around 8k HP, so thats not far off.

[Apatheist]

BC and Wrath both had completely different mob and player scaling, health and mana pools, talents, heirlooms, etc. The damage portion of holy nova's spellpower coefficient was 16% in BC and 21.43% in Wrath compared to 7.14% in vanilla.

At level 25 you can cast around 4-5 nova's for 30-ish damage (30*5*4=600.) The mobs in Stormwind Stockade have around 1,750HP at level 25. It will only get worse as you level, mobs get tougher while holy nova doesn't scale well.

If you're really into the idea by all means give it a try but it's generally better to do the math first so you don't waste weeks leveling. I leveled priests with full heirlooms and glyph of nova in Wrath too. It's completely different in vanilla.

[Purpleflavor]

yah priests are super tanky, and you can pull huuuuuuge packs with all the healing power, even though it takes longer to kill than mages you will likely get more exp per hour just pulling entire instances/zones.

[Fuzzyboy]

yah priests are super tanky, and you can pull huuuuuuge packs with all the healing power, even though it takes longer to kill than mages you will likely get more exp per hour just pulling entire instances/zones.

You should read the original post - also, what point are you attempting to make?


BC and Wrath both had completely different mob and player scaling, health and mana pools, talents, heirlooms, etc. The damage portion of holy nova's spellpower coefficient was 16% in BC and 21.43% in Wrath compared to 7.14% in vanilla.

At level 25 you can cast around 4-5 nova's for 30-ish damage (30*5*4=600.) The mobs in Stormwind Stockade have around 1,750HP at level 25. It will only get worse as you level, mobs get tougher while holy nova doesn't scale well.

If you're really into the idea by all means give it a try but it's generally better to do the math first so you don't waste weeks leveling. I leveled priests with full heirlooms and glyph of nova in Wrath too. It's completely different in vanilla.

I never used heirlooms or glyph (I think they were introduced in Wrath), but good point on the spell coeffecieints. That would explain why it worked during TBC, but might not in Vanilla :-)