Paladin Blessing guide.

Introduction
In this guide I describe the somewhat tedious workings of Paladin blessings in World of Warcraft. The main purpose is to provide non-pallys with some knowledge of how the blessing system works and to show how different it is from the more typical party wide vs. raid wide mechanic. I also show how fully and completely the addon Pally Power solves this problem.

Paladin Blessings
As of patch 3.1 there are four Paladin blessings in the game:

* Blessing of Might - Increase attack power by x. Can be boosted by the Improved Blessing of Might talent in the Retribution tree.
* Blessing of Wisdom - Increase mana regeneration by x. Can be boosted by the Improved Blessing of Wisdom talent in the Holy Tree.
* Blessing of Kings - Increase all attributes by 10%.
* Blessing of Sanctuary - Decreases all damage taken by 3% and returns 2% of maximum displayed mana when the target parries, blocks, or dodges. Gained by taking a talent in the protection tree.


A Paladin can cast only one blessing on each raid member and blessings of the same type from multiple Paladins do not stack. All Paladin blessings come in two varieties. They provide the same buff with the only difference being the number of targets and the duration.

* Blessing of x - A ten minute, single person buff
* Greater Blessing of x - A 30 minute, multi-person buff. The party/raid members affected by the buff are determined by the class of your target. i.e. If you target a warrior then all warriors will get the buff. Uses Symbol of Kings as a reagent.

Blessing Mechanics in a Raid
Looking at the mechanics of Greater Blessing, it becomes clear that some non-trivial amount of thought must go into how each pally will buff the raid. It often turns into a game of blessing Tetris with the Paladin contingent trying to get the best combination of buffs on each raid member. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that most blessings are boosted by talents scattered across all 3 trees and one, Sanctuary, is a talent itself.

When buffing the raid the Pally contingent is typically trying to meet the following goals:

* Get everyone all the buffs that can possibly benefit them. In an ideal situation this is usually at least three buffs, Kings + Sanctuary + Might/Wisdom. Some classes such as hunters can benefit from all four.
* Apply the buff using a pally talented for the improved version.
* Minimize the number of short duration buffs required to do all of the above.


Hybrid classes cause further complication as the same class can receive maximum benefit from different buffs depending on how they are talented. For instance, Paladins tend to want the following:

* Holy -> Blessing of Wisdom
* Protection -> Blessing of Might
* Retribution -> Blessing of Might


So the buffing Paladins have to decide which is easier - To cast Greater Might for the Protection and Retribution Paladins and then 'normal' wisdom for the healer or the other way around. I've found it's easiest to put the short duration buff on myself as I'm more likely to notice my own expired buffs rather than buffs missing on other players. Further influencing this decision is the fact that paladins have a glyph that will extend their own 'normal' buff to 30 minutes (but just when cast on themselves).

Then finally there are pets. For the purposes of the Greater Blessings, pets are mapped onto one of the player classes. You may have an owl or pig that buffs as a warrior while your zombie is treated as a rogue, etc. I've never really found a way to tell other than casting a blessing on them and seeing who else is affected. The bottom line is you may end up accidentally overwriting a player's buffs when buffing someone's pet.

Helpful Addons
Luckily for the Paladin community, someone has come up with an addon that makes the blessing algebra more manageable. Pally Power brings up a display that shows all the pertinent information in one place. Across the top of the window are each of the classes with character names printed underneath. Down the side are all the Paladins that have PallyPower installed along with all of their blessing related talent info (i.e. Do they have Kings, Sanctuary, or improved 'x'?). A designated leader can assign blessings to a particular Paladin right from this window. The assignments are all relayed back to each Paladin's own screen so that everyone knows who is casting which blessing on which raider. Short duration blessings can also be assigned from this interface by clicking on an individual character's name and selecting the desired Paladin and blessing from the dropdown menus.




Once the assignments are set the Paladin will have a small window on their UI where they simply click on each class box to refresh the blessing. A timer is displayed showing when each blessing will expire.