Holydin = Battle Mage

I've never been fond of holydins. Before 4.0 their healing style was dreadfully boring (seriously, it amazes me still today that people enjoyed spamming those two skills) and not very challenging. Well everyone to his own! So everytime I thought I wanted to level a holydin, since it is one of those things I haven't done yet, I thought "wait a minute, do you really want to spam those two skills for 80 levels? Think again lady". So I left it, for a very long time.

But then 4.0 came and I thought the changes to holydins seemed really interesting. Since I have a 80 paladin my first action was to log onto her, fix her holydin spec somewhat and give healing a try. My first tries were on Headless Horseman, and I basically only used Holy Radiance each cooldown just because it looked cool. Then I tried some instances, and I liked what I saw. So my final step was to roll a holydin. And let me tell you, they're crazily overpowered.

Holydins have a setup of talents that synergy with eachother into making a proper battle mage out of them. Let me take you through some of them so you get a general idea of how crazy holydins are right now, especially on low levels (and I imagine, in pvp).

The level 10 talent you get for choosing to be a holydin is Holy Shock. Holy Shock is now the core of holydin healing for many reasons. It always was a good heal, but has now become what I'd probably call among the best heals in the game.

• It is instant
• It is cheap (even cheaper than our "cheap" spell, Holy Light)
• It heals for a good amount
• It has a really short cooldown
• Talented properly, using it gives a whole set of buffs.
• It gives Holy Power with which we can use on another instant heal, free of mana.

Holy Shock is the heal I would make if I got to design my own heal. The only thing keeping it from being game-breakingly good is the pathetic 6 second cooldown. Seriously, on paper this heal looks just ridiculous. The thing is, in raids it's not overpowered, because the 6 second cooldown force the paladins to use other heals as well. But on low levels... this baby is god. And that means you are god.

Let's take a look at some of the talents that make holy shock, and holydins so absurdly awesome;

Protector of the Innocent - Each time you heal someone, even yourself, you will heal yourself. This means that as long as you heal something, you can't die. And if you heal yourself, your heals will become insanely big. First you holy shock yourself for 50% of your hp, then you get the bonus heal for 50% of your hp. Then if you for some reason happen to need more healing, you can use Word of Glory and get another bonus heal. That is 4 heals in two gcds! Can't even begin to imagine how hard it must be to kill holydins in pvp right now. Let me tell you, unless you stun them it is impossible (at least on low levels). Because we can heal ourselves so easily, we can be self-healing tanks with no trouble at all in lowbie instances. Trust me, I've tried several times. Blizzard have realized how overpowered this was, and in the latest Beta-build 13241 they've removed the extra heal when the heal is cast on yourself. Protector of the Innocent will only heal you when you heal someone else. This is a big change, but not big enough to make holydins less awesome in low levels.

Denounce - Everytime you use Holy Shock you have a 50% chance to get an instant, free Exorcism. This means that everytime we heal we get a chance to throw some instant exorcism. Oh and Holy Shock deals damage too, which means if we pewpew with it we have a good chance to get an exorcism. In fact this talent is the best reason holydins are battle mages. If you use it seriously in an instance you might very well end up highest on the damage done meters. Combine it with Divine Favor for 20% extra haste and crit and you're a machine gun of Exorcisms!

Enlightened Judgements - Gives hit rating equal to 100% of your spirit and makes your judgements heal you. Did we need more healing while pewpewing? Apparently!

Holydin wins overall damage = awesome!

In instances, if the tank is slow or gone or running into a wall I often just charge on. I can easily tank while keeping myself and everyone else alive and stay competetive on the damage meters! Holydins are magic tanks right now. When questing I just use Divine Favor and pew pew something down with Holy Shocks and Exorcisms. It's monotonous but it's damn effective. Like an arcane mage, but better! I usually don't enjoy playing overpowered classes (like hunters) because it feels too easy. But nothing has been quite the one-man-army that my holydin has turned out to be. And that is completely without any BoA gear or any other fancy gear. Holydins might not rock in endgame right now (although I heard they were quite ahead of every other healer class at 85), but they are completely awesome as lowbies. If you're looking to roll some alt, I strongly recommend trying this out.