The grind was not as near as bad as I had thought, having a full arsenal of epics helped. My biggest problem is that they changed the way seals and judgments worked. It took a few levels to realized what was what. This had to be the hugest change I have ever seen in a class. While there are a lot of improvements that I like there are a few things I wish they would increase the time on which is the judgments of wisdom and light when I am in a group. But its nice to be able to judge something from 40 yards away. Many times in the past I had to run up and do a judgment.

Divine plea for soloing is awesome. It has a 25 % mana return, and it has 1minute cool down. The only down side is it cuts healing in half. But it does not effect damage, so if you need a heal throw yourself one before you pop this spell. Rarely did I ever stop to drink to regain mana. Holy wraith came in a bit late for me to get any use out of leveling. By the time the patch came out I was mostly doing groups to get the last of my experience.

Last expansion I had dropped herbalism for blacksmithing. My hope was that there would be more gear to benefit a holy pally in this expansion. My hopes have been half met. Self socketing bracers and gloves gives me an extra 38 spell power from gems. But most of the craftable gear for a pally is either pvp friendly or has no intel at all, never mind no stamina. The pvp gear seems ok to use for regular groups and such. But epic craftable armor that has no stamina seems like a bad idea when there are encounters where less then 15000 health is a bad thing. Somehow being a armor smith means nothing in this expansion as there are no patterns for those that specialized in tailoring, leatherworking, and blacksmithing.

I think I have Larus prepared for raiding with the following specs:

Spell Power 1546

Crit Chance: 21.36%