Thanks Sheepz (Mike) for the great job editing this, and again gratz all!

Gratz to my 10-man group that made this possible, after only 15 attempts in 2 weeks overall (2nd attempt on last night) we manage to control the adds on this fights and the defiles. Although we have some experience also in 25 man. We got this 3rd on alliance side on our server, i hope that the 2 other groups in my guild can get this also soon!

I have to express my admiration to the guilds that actually downed this boss on its release week, still with no DBM update (makes defiles A LOT easier) and with limited attempts on this challenging fight. I feel that a big part of my WoW career is now over (the boss killing part) and now i can relax a bit, the last 4-year path to kill Arthas is now done.

Blizzard did a great job in here, a challenging encounter with room of almost no mistakes with a chunk or lore embeded on it, i do really hope this encounter remains like this and dont get the usual nerf bats. Killing him as we did generates some great feelings of acomplishment.

I got really nervous at a point of the fight, after flawless execution in phase1  and 2 we found some problems with the raging spirits on the transition to phase3. We carried 2 in here, with Vile Spirits and Soul Reaper was a lot to handle (also i was dragged at that point into the Frostmourne Chamber), we lost our OT and 2 dps here, then our druid b-rez one of the DPS by mistake (but in the long run it was actually good). Keeping the mad spamming on the tank and watching his health bar going up and down was tense, then we lost 1 healer, another DPS down, the other healer called oom on vent, we still had 2 minutes till enrage and the boss was at 18%…

From then on we yelled for all out and ignore the spirits, got a beacon on the Tank and kept the raid CDs going (Aura Mastery with shadow aura and Divine Guardian are EPIC), boss was at 12%,  15 secs till enrage, i was going mad, seal changed to vengeance, pop´d wings and went in…5 secs and boss at 11% then i saw the Lich King raising Frostmourne and instantlly raping everyone in the raid. DoTs still ticking, 10.9%.

Everyone yelled to not release, lore was not starting…yet, 10 secs after we saw the lore dialog out, vent went crazy, i think i woke up my neighbors with my screams.

Is it over???

Tirion and Uther were good to me, Valius, Gavel of the Lightbringer dropped for me. I have to thank again to this group that made it possible, great synergy and good attitude, now show the title with pride! 

The Kingslayers!

This fight can be tricky on the start due to some spike damage on 1-3 targets, requires some movement around and a phase with moderate raid damage. But once you get the hang of the incomming damage  and positioning then its a cake.

Thats a huge axe...

Phase 1 is mostly an almost-zero movement needed (after the correct positioning), followed by a transition phase 2 when he whirlwinds all over the place and people run away like headless chicken. For pulling 2(3) Tanks move in together to spread evenly the Saber Lash damage. Pre HoTs and Beacon up while running behind them also!

The Abilities
Saber Lash: A nice frontal cleave attack, it will occur several times during the phase 1, unless you are a Tank DO NOT stand on melee range and in his frontal cone hit box. As a paladin i usually beacon the OT and spam the MT to be safe (rotating between HL and FoL), save your mana regen abilities for the second phase.

Bone Spike Graveyard: Randomly casted on 1 (3 on 25 man) person, due to Saber Lash mechanics once the tanks got hit by it they gain immunity to this. DPS needs to break this ASAP, a BoP is handy also to prevent damage on the target if its your other healer. For Grid users you can add the Debuff: “Impaled” to see a visual of it ( I personally preffer GridStatusDebuffs does the job already). A change in Hard Mode is that this ability will be casted also during Bone Storm phase. We save our BoPs for those cases.

Coldflame: In my guild we stack everyone on melee, except for the hunters /sigh, doing this the ammount of movement and raid damage during phase 1 is reduced by a lot. Have your frost aura up anyways and be ready to move a bit while passes under you. On the 2nd phase he drops regularly doing an “X” effect, move away fast!

Bone Storm: The 2nd phase on this encounter, he will go nuts and start whirlwinding the place doing regular damage if people arent fast enough, don´t tunnel vision here, move away, Divine Guardian and Aura Mastery if needed, a BoP can be used also and remember aggro is dropped on the transition back to phase 1, so let your tanks grab him, reposition and then resume DPS.

From there on its a rinse and repeat, its a fun fight but can turn into a nightmare if people arent paying attention (or lack movement skills), a few more tips:

1) Keep your judgement of light up here on phase 2.
2) Chain raid mitigation cooldowns. Divine Plea on phase 2.
3) BoP any Impaled player that is not getting out of the spikes.
4) Transition between 2->1 has an aggro wipe, check your timers and move close (but not in front) of your tank.

Along the forums and internet blogs you will find different builds and discussions about them, but the only one that can tell you which talents are good is, at the end, yourself. This is a process of trial and error (in my case tooked me a lot of horrors *er i mean* errors). Here is what i think about each of the talents.

The Holy Talents:
Spiritual Focus: A must for healing PvE (and hell even PvP), combined with Concentration Aura will grant 100% free of pushbacks, no brainer here go 5/5

Seals of the Pure: Mostly seek by ret and maybe some disoriented tankadin, in your case as holy you dont need this talent 0/5

Healing Light: So, 12% increase healing on your main spells? Yes please! Gives us a raw benefit to our spells, so go all out here 3/3.

Divine Intellect: Even after the nerf, this talent is really good, 10% that stacks with kings and other int bonuses (like Mark of the Wild and Arcane Intellect), 5/5.

Unyielding Faith: A PvP talent, unless you are an arena junkie or BG addict then skip this for PvE 0/2.

Aura Mastery: For the effect granted with Concentration Aura some people think this is a PvP talent…well this baby has TONS of applications in PvE. Although its duration has been reduced to 6 secs (before it was 10, thx to Arenas gg), if used it wisely can grant a solid elemental raid-wide dmg reduction (Twins, Blood Queen, Sindragosa, etc) or an immunity to silence effects (Yogg, Faction Champs) when used with Conc Aura. Take it and love it 1/1.

Improved Lay on Hands: Grants dmg reduction and reduced duration, if you have another pally in your raid that goes 2/2 on imp. wis then you can go all out here, if not 1 point should be enough to pass into tier 5   1/2.

Improved Concentration Aura: This is more a PvP talent than Aura Mastery, no need to waste some points here 0/3.

Illumination: Ahhh this talent, it used to grant a lot of mana back (60% of mana per spell per crit), with the scaling in gear blizz had 2 options: or nerf it or change the itemization…they went for the 1st…meh, now a days is still a solid source of our mana regen.

Improved Blessing of Wisdom: I strongly recommend that at least 1 paladin in your raid goes all the way in here, 109 mp5 total with this is too good to pass, your other healers and arcane mages will love you! 2/2.

Blessed Hands: Very, but very situational talent. I am not a fan of talents that are used once every moon cycle, pick it at your own risk…0/2.

Pure of Heart: Reduced duration on curses, diseases and poisons? Of course it is a PvP talent (we can cleanse 2/3 of those) skip this for PvE please 0/2.

Divine Favor: 100% change of crit, for any burst damage and dont want to sit on a random number this is priceless. I personally have it macro with a Holy Shock to heal-on-the-run (and in the process guarantee a instant cast FoL) 1/1.

Sanctified Light: Solid 6% increased critical chance on Holy Lights and Holy Shocks, take it while is still there 3/3.

Purifying Power: Skip this at all cost! As a holy paladin you shouldnt be having mana problems 99% of the time, we have tons of other tools to mana save/regen 0/2

Holy Power: Awesome talent, direct and flat 5% increase critical chance with your holy spells, more hps and more mana back…do i have to say more? 5/5.

Light´s Grace: So every time you cast a Holy Light you reduce the next one in 0.5 secs, no-brainer talent here, plain buff to our HPS (Heals Per Second). 3/3.

Holy Shock: Some paladins hate our 31-point talent, in my opinion its a good to tool to heal on the move with a decent range (40 yards) and tied to other talents for buffs, it shouldnt be your main heal (unless you and your tank rediculosly overgear that content) 1/1.

Blessed Life: PvP based talent, could be used in some fight with heavy raid damage, but i am no fan of % based talents, dont pick it up unless you dont have any more choices to make after taking the mandatory ones. 0/3.

Sacred Cleansing: So…another PvP talent? a % chance to increase another % of resistance? please pass this talent, you will hardly notice it. 0/0.

Holy Guidance: Now this is a great talent, more int = more spell power, so for those like me that are int addicts this talent is godsend. Take it and love it. 5/5.

Divine Illumination: Basic and Mandatory Talent, 15 sec flat reduced cost of ALL spells casts (like Beacon), it is off the Global Cooldown (GCD), also makes our Tier10 bonus so OP. I usually save it for mana intensive burns while HL spam is needed.1/1.

Judgements of the Pure: Go all out here, free haste w/o any Diminishing Returns. This would make our haste cap of only 680, so even with full badge/conquest gear you would be on 1sec FoL. 5/5.

Infusion of Light: A talent tied to mostly all our commonly used spells, so makes it pretty much a must to take here. So even though you aint a Holy Shock fan you will need to take it. 2/2.

Enlightened Judgements: This baby can help you stay on a safe range of any Whirwinds or nasty cleaves, you would love to keep on judging every now and then to refresh Judgements of the Pure and to keep the mana returns of Seal of Wisdom (Judgement is considered a melee attack). 2/2.

Beacon of Light: OP, just that. Pick it, use it and master it. Great healadins excel cause they know how and when to cast Beacon. You can single hand heal a raid sometimes while your tank takes a beating cause of this spell. It has the longest range healing spell in the game, so you can even target someone out of your regular range and spam heals nearby and safe both targets. 1/1.

The Prot Talents:
I will only talk about the useful here:

Divinity: Solid 5% more healing (heck sometimes its overhealing) but its way better than the other option soooo. 5/5

Guardian´s Favor: 3 min CD on BoP…errrr HoP….damn names! Great talent wouldnt miss it to advance. 2/2

Stoicism: So you need 3 points to get to the next tier, is either this or dodge and with Chill of the Throne…well at least it can save your life while zoning in the instance and a pack of horde is waiting and drolling to kill ya. 3/3.

Divine Sacrifice: So only we and some tankadins can get this ability to function at full (due to its ties to Divine Guardian) but now it wont kill you so you can use it freely without the need of Divine Shield. Use it to mitigate any upcomming party (and with DG raid) damage, i see a lot of paladins that dont take advantage of this. 1/1

Improved Righteous Fury: Wont hurt to have a 6% damage reduction…BUT be very carefull when to pop this spell, you can easily draw healing aggro from ads and/or bosses, so this could backfire. 0-3/3

Toughness: Plain armor for damage reduction, you need points to get to the next tier so put what you need and move out. 1-4/5

Divine Guardian: Even with the nerf is still a powerful raid-wise damage reduction ability. Now you must use it wisely due to its short 6 sec duration. But still is powerful. Also a good buff to our Sacred Shield. 2/2.

Improved Devotion Aura: Most likely if you have a Tankadin he would take it, but most 10s dont have that luxury, so take it if you need it (or if you might have to). 3/3

So this is it, pick what you need and grab your caster plate, soon reviews on ICC bosses!

Two epic encounters in 25 man, finally your healers get the credit they deserve. On Dreamwalker by actually healing her and on Singragosa keeping alive the trigger-happy dps when they have 5+ stacks of Mystic Buffet and Unchained Magic at the same time, while dealing with the AoE frost dmg, tank damage, frost breaths and dropping their own stacks (phew). I will go into more details of the fights on my ICC per fight walkthrough.

We did had some attempts on The Lich King, will not give any spoilers but the feeling of that encounter its a thing a havent felt playing wow in quite a while (hint turn the sound/music all the way up here). Here some screenshots:

OMG Chaaaargeee!

1 Person mistake = wipe

That being said lets start with some knowledge of the class, i assume that mostly have leveled as any spec but Holy (cause that would be really slow) and you need to get used to the tools you have to offer around. 

Heals: 

Holy Light: This is the first holy spell that you get, although is a mana dump for lower levels. Has a long casting time but, with the ammount of haste gained on most items in  T9+ content, it should drop the cast time to 1.4-1.3 secs. It scales perfectly with your Spell Power (188.5%) and its your tank saviour most of the times. With a proper gemming and glyphing you can make this your primary heal for 25-mans or 10-mans heroic. 

Flash of Light: This is your bread-and-butter spell for healing during 5-mans, heroics and a lot of the current 10-man content, it scales decently with your spell power (113%). Also with the haste gained on late gear its cast time should drop to 1 sec. Even with FoL specs this spell wont cut sometimes on heavy single target damage (Gornoc in ToGC or Marrowgar on ICC). 

Holy Shock: Our 31-point talent and oh-shit heal, this spell causes mixed feelings on the paladin community, you can love it or hate it, but in my humble opinion is a great tool to heal on-the-move (one of our weaknesses), decent scale with spell power ( 90.5%)  and procs a buff on crits. 

Sacred Shield: Our mitigation spell, if properly spec’d into holy and prot talents will grant a decent absorption per 6 secs, it can only be casted on 1 target, so always get your tank with this, also the healing over time (hot) granted with FoL ticks every second. With the proper gear it can provide 40k absorption in 1 min. 

Beacon of Light: The 51-point Holy talent, this kind of ability was waited since BC. It gives us great flexibility to help raid healing or single-handed heal 2 targets at the same time. All your direct heals will transfer to your beacon target while he/she is at least 60 yards in range of the person that is healed. Also note that your Beacon target must be in line of sight. Spells that wont heal the beacon are: Holy Light Glyph, Judgement of Light and the HoT portion of your Flash of Light. It is the healing spell with longer range in WoW, so if a tank runs out of your healing spells range he might be still on beacon range, so you can beacon him and heal everyone around. All overhealing goes to the beacon target (that makes it so powerful). 

Lay oh Hands: The o-crap heal, due to his long Cooldown it is adviced to saved it for moments in the fight when a target gets really low and a Holy Shock wont fit. Anyways it should be up for every boss fight so i always use it once per boss.

The Hands:
Temporal spells that makes us unique on a raid enviorment, use them wisely! 

Hand of Sacrifice: Our heavy single-target damage reduction ability, but be careful, depending on the fight mechanic it can kill you. A good practice is to have a macro set like:

#showtooltip Divine Shield
/cast Divine Shield
/cast Hand of Sacrifice

That way you prevent damage transfered by your target to you and still provide a solid damage reduction (or you can simply Beacon that target and heal yourself). 

Hand of Freedom: A helpful spell that will free a target for almost every root/slow effect in game, short cooldown and mana cost makes it priceless. 

Hand of Salvation: A great tool to reduce, gradually, the targets threat. Handy when some trigger-happy DPS starts to go all out while the tank is pulling  

Hand of Protection: Oh boy the memories with this one, it can be a life saver or can produce a wipe (when you accidentally BoP a tank…/whistle), grants total protection vs physical attacks only, also removes any bleed effect ongoing on a target (impales in ToC the most recent) 

Blessings:
These are the 10-min/30 min buffs you bring to a raid, all of them are powerful tools, so master them. (Note: if you are a raiding paladin you NEED to have a blessing manager addon like pally power or Zomgbuffs, it makes your life easier) 

Blessing of Kings: This is the buff that everyone will ask for in a raid, arguably the most powerful buff in the game, scales with your gear so… when in doubt about on which buff asign to an specific class just kings them and they will be happy. (To be honest i die a little inside when i am with my shaman and with 5 pallies in raid i see people asking for kings) 

Blessing of Might: Your melee will love you for this one, great direct AP buff, if you are running with a ret he would most likely have the imp version, or if you are into a Holy/Ret spec then you can pick it for utility purposes. 

Blessing of Wisdom: A solid buff on regen for mana-users, if you run with more than 1 pally in raid you can pick the imp version on your holy talents. 

Now these are all your basic tools for starting to heal, master them!

After a few months with them we cleared all BC content incluiding Sunwell with server firsts. During Wrath the guild decided to move to another server but i choose to stay due to having RL friends playing there.

So, after being in some smaller and friendly guilds i landed on another top guild in the server: And my Unicorn Army (i am sucker for funny names), with those guys i had the best raiding experience so far, not only clearing Ulduar and ToC/ToGC hard modes, but also getting to know some mature, friendly and focused players.

Due to some missunderstandings the guild broke apart 2 weeks before the ICC release. Now i landed on another server: Korgath and ready to clear all content in ICC for good!

TL;DR version: I play a Holy Paladin with experience in all paladin aspects

A little more of this, I play on a PvP Server Korgath in a progression-minded guild called The Backseat.

I´ll try to give some insights on my class/spec and the advancement into Icecrown Citadel, enjoy!