Player Spotlight: 김쪼코 (Kimchoco)

Hello everyone! Welcome to the fifth week of the RaiderIO Player Spotlight. My name is Samantha aka Vitaminpee and with this series, I am aiming to highlight the amazing players of World of Warcraft regardless of their chosen class, spec, language, and/or region. I hope to bring you valuable information and help you learn more about your favorite top players or discover new ones from around the world that you may not yet know.

I’d like to extend a special thanks to Sylvianna, Nooborghini, Kcrit, and Ssong for generously assisting me throughout this project with Kimchoco. I do not speak Korean, so thank you for helping me get into contact with her and translate back and forth between us throughout this process.

한국어 번역은 여기를 클릭하십시오. (Translated by Kcrit)

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“Don't be put down by the ‘bad’ perception held by the community. With some effort, we can be amazing, so keep playing Holy Paladin if you enjoy it.”

VitaminP: Can you please tell us a little more about yourself?

Kimchoco: Hello! My name is Jin and I am the Holy Paladin called Kimchoco (김쪼코). I am currently living in Seoul, South Korea. I have been playing World of Warcraft since right around Burning Crusade, so roughly about 10 years now. The first time I did competitive dungeon content was Challenge Mode Dungeons in the early days of Warlords of Draenor. However, I fell in love with competitive Mythic+ in patch 7.3.2 of Legion. I have been doing Mythic+ and building a team ever since.




VitaminP: Why do you play Holy Paladin? Do you have any other healer alts that you also play in high keys?

Kimchoco: The main reason I play Holy Paladin is because it is extremely engaging and fun. We have so much utility in our kit with Blessing of Protection, Blessing of Sacrifice, Aura Mastery, and Bubble. The damage we deal both inside and outside of Avenging Wrath is very advantageous to a group. Blessing of Protection allows us to negate an infinite amount of physical damage due to the "immunity" it grants, so it is extremely useful in various situations. For example, when facing Cragmaw in The Underrot, we can use Blessing of Protection to negate the damage from Tantrum completely. Another great use for Blessing of Protection is using it on the tank so they can gather huge pulls without the worry of an instant death. For example, in a Fortified Motherlode key, we can use Blessing of Protection on our tank while he groups up the mobs so that he doesn’t die to Throw Wrench being cast by the Off-duty Laborers.

Currently I don't have any other healer alt characters, but I do play an alt Mage and I even DPS as Retribution sometimes on my Paladin.



VitaminP: What are your go-to Azerite traits and talent builds for high M+?

Kimchoco: Here is my main setup for Mythic+:

Base talents:
(Level 45 Talents are based on the composition of the party members)
Talent changes for high Tyrannical bosses (like in Waycrest Manor):
→
Talent changes for Kings’ Rest:
→
Azerite Traits:
It is critical to have 1x
Then try to get up to 2x or either of:



VitaminP: What is the most challenging thing about playing a Holy Paladin in high Mythic+ this expansion? How detrimental has it been to have wings and Holy Avenger both on the GCD?

Kimchoco: The most frustrating thing about Holy Paladin this expansion is definitely that our major healing cooldowns are now on the GCD. In high keys, a 1-second delay on cooldowns can be the difference between a wipe and a kill. In addition, the nerf to Holy Shock in Battle for Azeroth has been challenging since I can't get 100% crit anymore by stacking 50% base crit. However, you can make it work by getting extra crit from the Deadly Navigation weapon enchant, Azerite traits such as Blightborne Infusion, and trinket procs. Overall, you’ll have a much easier time if you can effectively manage your Holy Avenger and Avenging Wrath cooldowns properly by rotating your cooldowns with the tank’s cooldowns without overlapping. Usually, you'll have at least 1 cooldown per pull if you manage everything well. Most of your healing will go into the tank, but if you manage your crowd control cooldowns and interrupts properly there shouldn't be much extra healing required for the DPS anyway.



VitaminP: We notice that you seems to do most high keys with a Blood Death Knight. What is your favorite tanking class to heal for and why? Has your opinion shifted since the recent nerf to Blood DK's in patch 8.1?

Kimchoco: Even after the Blood Death Knight nerfs in 8.1, I strongly think that Holy Paladin is the best healer for them. Holy Paladin lacks consistent heals when our Beacon of Virtue is on cooldown and it is very difficult to heal the Tank and the DPS players at the same time without it. In contrast, a Brewmaster requires constant healing due to their Stagger mechanic and this doesn't mesh well with Holy Paladins. Blood Death Knight has the best synergy with us in my opinion.

Since the launch of 8.1, Blood Death Knights have a lot more random and/or sudden deaths, so now more than ever, you need to rotate your cooldowns properly. It has been crucial to utilize our Boomkin’s cooldowns such as Treants and Typhoon during the gaps where your cooldowns aren't up. Timing all of our group’s cooldowns properly in addition to the natural self-healing of a Blood Death Knight are the factors that allow me to do as much damage as possible, which can be the difference between a timed and untimed dungeon. Other healing classes may not do as much supplemental damage, making Holy Paladin a strong pick in my opinion.

If next tier is good for Blood Death Knight, I'll continue to push with a Blood Death Knight. However, I am open to experimenting a little too, since I have yet to play with a Prot Paladin, a Vengeance Demon Hunter, or a Guardian Druid in this current expansion.



VitaminP: How do you deal with healing in the downtime between Beacon of Virtue?

Kimchoco: So Beacon of Virtue is really good and helps us with our lack of AoE/spread healing. The downside of Beacon of Virtue is that, if you accidentally use it at the wrong time, it can be very punishing since we do not have other means to recover from group-wide burst damage compared to other healing classes such as Mistweaver Monk or Resto Druid. When Beacon of Virtue is on cooldown, we usually use other cooldowns from our group kit or tank cooldowns. A little thing I like to do is use Holy Avenger or the Infusion of Light proc from my Holy Shock criticals during the 7 second downtime between Beacon of Virtue casts, which will allow me to fill this gap. Otherwise, we just simply rotate Treants, Blessing of Sacrifice or Aura Mastery.



VitaminP: Did you play Holy Paladin in keys in Legion? If so, how do you feel that the gameplay differs in BFA due to the nerfs?

Kimchoco: Back in Legion, Holy Paladins had much more stamina than other healers and we also got 9% personal damage reduction every time we cast Judgement, which helped make us a top tier healing class for high Mythic+ when personal survivability was so important in high keys. Sadly, we lost both the extra stamina and the damage reduction from Judgement in Battle for Azeroth, but this doesn't feel like as big of a problem now since we don't really have to deal with the same kind of lethal damage compared to the dungeons last expansion. In BFA dungeons, healing throughput has more emphasis than our personal survivability due to the tank's self sustain nerf and the lack of one-shot mechanics compared to Legion. Additionally, we are still the only healing class that wears plate armor, so we take less physical damage and we can also wear shields which adds even more armor for our physical damage reduction.



VitaminP: What is your favorite dungeon in BFA and why?

Kimchoco: I like Shrine of the Storm, Tol Dagor, and The Motherlode, but my favorite dungeon is The Underrot. It's a fun dungeon because I can pump out a lot of damage. It is very difficult for Holy Paladins to judge when to DPS and when to heal since we can't put up HoTs on everyone and pump like a Restoration Druid.

“If you're willing to learn and familiarize yourself with the dungeon as well as your team, Paladins are great healers.”

VitaminP: What advice do you have for other Holy Paladins who are feeling discouraged by the negative community perceptions that the spec is bad in Mythic+?

Kimchoco: I think the reason people think Paladins have a difficult time healing compared to other classes is because we are VERY dependent on cooldowns. If you use your cooldowns at the wrong time, you will have a very difficult time keeping up and healing through unavoidable damage. Once you get a rhythm of how the dungeon is pulled with your group, you'll have a better grasp of when you can use your cooldowns accordingly. In my personal opinion, there is no "easy" healer where you just pick it up and you're ready to go. Everything is based on the comfortability of the dungeon and your group. If you're willing to learn and familiarize yourself with the dungeon as well as your team, Paladins are great healers.

Lastly, don't be put down by the "bad" perception held by the community. With some effort, we can be amazing, so keep playing Holy Paladin if you enjoy it. Once you get used to it, I personally think that we are the best healer class for damage at the moment since we can dish out a crazy amount of DPS and then quickly catch up on healing due to our bursty nature.

Overall, I believe that Holy Paladins are underestimated. We have so much valuable utility and can heal a wide array of situations very effectively since we can rotate our personal cooldowns with the group’s cooldowns to maximize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses. Here is a video of me and my team doing a +21 Underrot if you’re interested. I hope this will be a lot of help for avid Paladin Healers!





VitaminP: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us today?

Kimchoco: I would like to thank Lance, Grimzyo, 고기먹고야근, 준홍띠, and Yatal for playing with me and sticking together as a team. All of our success comes from our good chemistry and team spirit. Thank you all so much!