Hello guys,
Do you think there is any way to play M+ as a range Holy Paladin in Shadow Lands?
I miss my old paladin. I love his healing tool kit, bless bla bla… but regarding DPS in M+ which is a must. I don’t mind to use my range dps skills (Judgment, HS and even concentration, to pop it and run a little bit back), however, I hate to use CS, I don’t like to be in melee full time and follow the mobs to be enough close to hit it.
Do you think there is a chance to play both style melee for people who like the new melee paladin or range for more old fashion paladins?
PS: I have tried to play with the Holy Priest because some people say, it is the range, holy paladin. However, its healing tool kit is so bland… it doesn’t have the same flavour than the Holy Paladin.
PS: I know our mastery forces us to be in melee. However, I always try to avoid mastery, I don’t like the idea of you heal less if you are not close enough to X.
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Of course its possible will be two playstyles for Holy Paladin and both will be viable.
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Yes but mythic plus is all about being able to contribute to damage, the ranged " holy paladin" which is the holy light build with legendary and covenant conduit appears to be powerful in a raid setting but sub-optimal on paper for mythic plus.
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Also depends what m+ he intends to go. Alot of players want the best things but most of us will settle for weekly +15’s and when it comes to those truth is that its best to just play what you like the most because every spec/class/covenant is more than viable for +15’s.
Its when you start pushing things like a more damage oriented Holy build can make the difference between a timed key and failed one.
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hello,
I’ve been doing some testing with this over the last few days, both on the beta and in a few easy 19 keys on live
a ranged build is viable but it has 2 major weakness
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it is slow, with the change to infusion big heals are slow and small heals don’t heal enough. you can sort of make up for it a little by moving your beacons about to generate holy power and using talents like BF to layer your healing but the play style over all is much much slower.
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it struggles with burst healing. this is most noticeable when you don’t have wings available. essentially without being able to use CS to quickly generate Holy Power your ability to burst heal is greatly reduced. this can make responding to multiple damage events more difficult but not impossible. it will require better planning and better knowledge of the dungeon.
my advice is why make the distinction. you can play a ranged build and the dive into melee when it makes sense to you. for example to drop consecrate or generate a little extra HP
i just want to make a quick note on holy paladin dps.
Consecrate is a really high dps ability make sure you drop it even if you are just running in and out.
you might encounter mana problems if you are trying to CS and shock on cd for dps. so do keep an eye on that. however if you are pushing cs into dps and strictly only use it to generate hp when you need it, you wont have any mana problems. just keep an eye on your mana and do what makes sense to you.
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i just want to chime in here and say that holy paladin dps right now is very mana intensive. most of the viable dps comes from auto attacks and consecrate. our active dps is only really viable on priority targets for a limited amount of time. even running memory of lucid dreams its far to easy to go completely oom less than 1 min into the fight if you just go all out dps.
i suspect hp dps in the next exp will be defined more by passive dps and less by active dps
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hello,
i just want to add that mastery != melee. ~
it is 100% effective in 10 yards and drops off linearly to 0% at 40 yards the best place to stand will change depending on your group. for example if you are running 3 ranged dps go sit with them. or if you have a some ranged some melee sit between them.
mostly mastery shouldn’t be something you overly worry about. we don’t stack it for m+ and its practically impossible to micro manage
my advice would be to make sure your healing ui shows you if someone is inside your devo aura (15 yards) and just try to make sure at least a couple of your party members have that buff and you should be good.
but the actual healing buff from out mastery isn’t so significant that you should endanger the paladin in order to get maximum effectiveness out of it. if you can hit someone with a heal they are getting at least some of your mastery. and if you are really worried about it just pop Rule of law whenever someone is low.
finally, i just want to add that you can log a m+ and pop it into the wow analyzer it will give you a break down of how effective your mastery was on each person. mostly i expect you will see that it sits at around 80% even for the people who are miles away from you.
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Of course its possible will be two playstyles for Holy Paladin and both will be viable.
Could you explain how the range paladin is viable in M+? I really want to go back to main my old holy pally 
if I don’t feel forced to play in melee.
I am more than happy to do dps from range (judgment, holy shock) or pop-in my concentration… but my concern is how much dmg I am going to lose if I don’t use my CS or auto attacks…
Thanks
As other posters have said it is possible to play ranged but planning is required.
Using Wings is a must as you are relying on using Bestow Faith, HS, FOL and HL . I would personally go for a 2,2,3,3,2,3,3 build
Bestow Faith for another Ranged Ability
Judgment of Light for additional heals when using Judgment
Blinding Light
Rule of Law due to mastery
Holy Avenger if burst is needed. Pop Holy Avenger and use HS. If a lot of healing is required, I have to go melee and use CS
Awakening - Longer uptime on wings, thus FOL and HL are stronger
Beacon of Virtue - ideal for AOE healing since 4 out of 5 people get beacons thus generating Holy Power for each cast you make. BOV is also good for Single Target healing as it generates Holy Power quickly, by spamming FOL
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Are you stacking Mastery even if you are not to play around your allies all time? (Range paladin) I prefer to stack critic + haste > vers… … mastery. Vers give you more dmg, and healing
i cant see a situation where you would ever actively stack mastery in m+ regardless of healing spec
But you are not using your mastery properly if you are not in melee or using Law. Right? Is not better Versatile?
Xift has covered the basics quite nicely, although there is a fair amount of flexibility in the talents. the thing to keep in mind is that if you are playing 100% ranged all the time you are missing out on consecrate dmg and hamstringing your rotation, i think the best “ranged build” will still involve a little weaving in and out of melee
i just want to add that if you want to stay up to date with current holy paladin theory craft and guides then pop over to the hammer of wrath discord
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if you scroll up slightly i already explained how best to utilise your mastery if you are not planning to play a melee build.
Mastery != melee, i hope that helps but if you have any other questions im more than happy to answer them
Unfortunately… when you ask something relate to range holy pally in that discord all people there jump on you!! LIKE GO AND PLAY HOLY PRIEST!! OR PALLY IS ONLY MELEE… bla bla
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yes they do have their fair amount of trolls, i would aim the question directly at Ellesmare or one of the moderators. ultimately adapting the raid building into a m+ viable build shouldn’t be too difficult
For m+ you go with Crit/Haste in a ranged build, only reason to go with Mast or Versa is mana efficiency and thats never a thing in m+ you want pure output and haste also increase your HP generation. When it comes to Holy Paladin they have been taking steps to improve the ranged style and its clearly the style they invision for Paladins to use.
Think I saw something just recently on WoWhead where Druid was the only healer that managed to push a +29, but already at +27 every single other healer spec was still present. And that will be the case for Shadowlands aswell there will be specs that are more suited and stronger for it but at the end of the day every spec is viable quite high up.
People are too fast to say things arent viable just because they arent as strong as the shiny thing but in reality the difference in terms of keys your able to push is low.
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You can play holy paladin at range in M+ if you want, Is it optimal? No, as our toolkit is baked into being a melee healer for things
The main factor on if you can do the ranged setup is how high are you pushing M+ as if your trying to push high keys you will need to start doing melee for the extra output (Damage and Healing), if your doing weekly 15’s then you will be fine doing ranged just know you are making it take longer by not doing damage that adds up to alot over a dungeon
Edit: on the bit about the discord, Those are trolls, ignore them, Templars (Yellow names) or Mods (Pink Names) are who you would best be taking it from, There are some white names that are helpful and aren’t trolls, we do try to keep the questions channel moderated as much as we can
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it goes without saying that the ranged build will be behind the melee build, for most players I don’t think it will matter. certainly as we progress through the season and people start to our gear the 15s.
side-note thanks for chiming in, always good to see a templar in chat.
also i would just add there is no reason why you cant play both builds. the secondaries we stack should be fairly interchangeable between the specs. i expect both will use divine toll.
it docent need to be one or the other, play what makes sense for you to play and what you enjoy.
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I love your point of view!! 
You are very diplomatic!
To be honest… I hope we have the chance to play both build like the MWs have. They can choose between range or melee and both are ok.