Introduction
Welcome to the Holy Paladin Compendium for Wrath of the Lich King. If you have questions about this guide or who I am, contact Sharlet in game on the Lordaeron realm. This is a near copy of my original post @EJ, with edits to better suit these private servers and it's bugs. All information listed below is based upon Retail 3.3.5 play and experience unless otherwise stated, I am not yet aware of all bugs present in Warmane boss encounters or elsewhere. Feel free to inform me of any that reflect badly upon what is written here and I'll be happy modify accordingly.
Currently active characters;
Lordaeron, Horde
Sharlet
Acronyms
There are many acronyms in WoW, and Paladins are doing their part to keep that true. For the new Paladins out there this is to help you not be totally confused while reading this post.
AM: Aura Mastery
AW: Avenging Wrath, commonly known as Wings
BoK: Blessing of Kings
BoP: Blessing of Protection The more common name is HoP
BoW: Blessing of Wisdom
BoL: Beacon of Light.
CD: Cooldown
DF: Divine Favor
DG: Divine Guardian
DI: Divine Illumination For the purposes of this thread, it doesn't refer to Divine Intervention
DiSac: Divine Sacrifice
DG: Divine Guardian
DP: Divine Protection
DS: Divine Shield/Bubble
FoL: Flash of Light
GCD: Global Cooldown
HL: Holy Light.
HoP: Hand of Protection
HoSac: Hand of Sacrifice
HoT: Health over Time
HPM: Healing per mana
HPS: Healing per second
HS: Holy Shock
ICD: Internal Cooldown
IoL: Infusion of Light
JoL: Judgement of Light
JotP: Judgement of the Pure
JoW: Judgement of Wisdom
LG: Light's Grace
Mp5: Mana per 5 sec
MT: Main Tank
OOM: Out of mana
OT: Off Tank
SP: Spell Power
SS: Sacred Shield
WoL: World of Logs
5SR: 5 second rule
TL;DR : "BiS"Gear Sets
Min-Max Spec/Glyphs/Gems/Enchants Included, some may vary. *UNFINISHED*
iLvl 264/ICC 25, Haste/Max Throughput
Notes: This is the optimal non-heroic (excluding Solace iLvl 258) throughput gear setup, which would be used ideally for encounters as healing intensive as Heroic 25 Man Lich King. The Heroic version of the setup consists of the same items upgraded to Heroic, crafted Legs swapped for Leggings of Dying Candles (Heroic)
iLvl 251 Optimal Availability, No Crafted
Notes: This set is for the most part, for the sake of doing it to list the available items in 10 man. There are a few variations of different armor types.
Ashstrike's Choice
Notes: This set is an exact copy of the gear (yes, even the shirt and tabard), spec, gems, enchants and glyphs my Paladin in Retail wore before I quit playing. If I were to choose, this is also the exact set I would use here.
Stats
For each stat I will try to demonstrate what 100 items points gives, which is equivalent to 5 epic quality Northrend gems. For most stats 1 item point is equal to 1 point in the stat. The exceptions are Spell Power (1 item point = 1.166 sp), Mp5 (1 item point = 0.5 Mp5) and Stamina (1 item point = 1.5 stamina).
Intellect
Intellect has received a huge boost with WotLK mechanics, and is now the best stat for Holy Paladins by far. Here is what 100 Intellect gives:
121 Intellect, with BoK and Divine Intellect
1815 Mana at the start of the fight
37.8Mp5 from Divine Plea, if it is used on CD.
18.1Mp5 from Replenishment.
4.54Mp5 from Arcane Torrent, if you are a Blood Elf.
24.2 Spell Power
0.726% Spell Crit
This gives you a lot of mana, where you can easily reach 45k pool with ICC gear, which lets you cast more Holy Lights and be more liberal in using them. If you stack this stat and use proper mana pool management you will be able to spam Holy Light during most fights.
Spell Power
Increases how much healing your spells do at a rate dependent on each spell, exact values are given in the spells section. FoL scales really well with Spell Power because it has a low mana cost, but gets more benefit from Spell Power than other 1.5sec spells. Once you get to higher gear levels its low amount of base healing won't really matter, since 75% of the healing it does is from Spell Power. 100 Item points gives you 120 Spell Power, which increases each FoL heal at level 80 by 134 and HL by 223.
Haste Rating
Increases how fast your heals cast, but they cost the same amount of healing per mana. 10% Spell Haste does not mean your spells cast 10% faster, rather it means in a given time period you will cast 10% more spells. So the cast time after haste is calculated by (Base Cast Time)/(1 + Spell Haste). The more haste you get the less cast time it will reduce, but it will increase how many spells you can cast by the same amount. It is important to note that all haste effects (Wrath of Air, Ret Aura, JotP, and haste rating) stack multiplicative. So with all of the raid buffs you need 20.6% haste from gear (676 haste rating) to get haste soft capped (50% haste is a 1 second spell GCD). Further haste will help Holy Light cast faster. Haste increases the chance that HL will reach your target in time, so it is the best throughput stat for HL focus. A FoL focused player should not gear past 676 haste.
Critical Strike Rating
Critical Heals end up healing for 50% more and cost 30% less mana, and 100 Spell Crit gives +2.17% crit rate at 80. Crit isn't as usually as strong as other healing stats, since the extra healing usually is overheal and Illumination's 30% less cost doesn't give the same mana return as the same item cost as Mp5. However, sometimes crit can help Glyph of HL and the FoL HoT become stronger. Note Intellect gives you 1/3 of the amount of Crit for the same item cost, while giving the before mentioned bonuses.
Assume 45 Holy Light casts per minute (spamming with the haste soft cap with full raid buffs):
100 item points of crit = 31.13 Mp5 (when spamming HL as the best case, so in practice the returns will be less).Code:1272 (base cost) * 45 (HLs per minute) * 0.3 (mana return) * 0.01 (1% more crit) * 5/60 (convert to Mp5) = 14.3325
1% crit = 45.91 crit rating
14.3325/45.91 = 0.313 Mp5 per 1 crit rating
Abilities
Holy Paladins in Wrath have quite a few useful spells in their toolkit unlike the Classic/TBC Paladin.
Holy Light
With how much mana you can have now, because of Intellect and Divine Plea, this is your main spell that you can spam most of the fight. Holy Light receives 188.5% of spell power per cast with Healing Light. There are a lot of new mana reduction effects (Libram and GSoW) that if you have all them brings the HPM for HL and FoL very close. HL will very often overheal with how much we can cast it now, but that is nothing to be concerned with. Unless you are going OOM before the fight ends, it doesn't matter how much it overheals.
Flash of Light
This is normally used when mana is tight or there is not much is needed healing. It receives 113% of spell power per cast with Healing Light. Divinity will increase the healing by 5% which this spell needs all the +healing it can get. If you cast FoL on a target with SS buff (with IoL talent), it puts a HoT buff up equal to 100% of Flash's heal. This HoT double dips on benefits from healing multipliers such as Imp Devotion Aura, Glyph of Seal of Light, and the ICC Aura.
Holy Shock
With IoL your crits with Holy Shock makes FoL instant or your next Holy Light have a 20% increased crit chance. It receives 90.5% of spell power per spell cast. This is great a spell to use when you are moving and can't cast anything else, or the tank took a huge burst and they will likely die before you can get a Holy Light off. It is both worse HPM and HPS then Holy Light, so I do not use too much, besides those reasons.
Beacon of Light
This is the spell that we were given to help us deal with being able to heal multiple targets at the same time. It can be much better, or it can be worse, than other healer's AoE healing depending on the situation. The Beacon takes into account all healing, so it is very useful. It only works on Paladin healing abilities (ignoring Glyph of HL and trinkets). The common practice is to place the Beacon on main tank and go to raid. It can be a huge mana sink to keep it up, but it is very much worth it. However, don't feel like you need to have 100% up-time on it, sometimes the tank could die while you are refreshing the Beacon so be aware. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target and the healing transfer radius is 60 yards. BoL requires Line of Slight to heal.
Here are some good strategies of different ways to use Beacon depending on the fight.
- Two tanks standing near each who are both taking regular damage: This is one of the most ideal situations for Beacon of Light effectiveness. You will want to cast it on the tank you are not healing and then just heal your assigned tank like normal, essentially giving free heals to the other tank.
- One tank in range and heavy raid damage: In 25mans you will want to just cast Beacon of Light on a tank and just heal the raid, just heal the tank if no one in the raid is taking damage. Remember, watch your tanks health like a hawk they will probably still need some direct heals at times because there is a small amount of lag associated with the beacon heal.
- One tank in range and minimal raid damage: This might be one of those times where it is just not worth casting Beacon of Light. Fights like this don't occur all that often, so don't worry about it too much.
Sacred Shield
First I will clarify how SS works, when you cast the spell on someone they gain a 30 (60 with DG) second buff. Nothing happens until the target takes damage, when they do they will take the full amount, but will gain a 6s (12s with DG) second buff and can only occur every 6 seconds. This new buff will absorb the next 500 + 75% of your Spell Power damage and then expire, while it is active it will also increase the crit rate of FoL by 50%. The SS buff causes FoL to add a HoT equal to FoL's heal.
- The Divine Guardian talent was added in 3.1, and makes SS more useful, however a target can only have one SS buff at a time, so your best bet is to have each Holy Pally cast it on a separate tank. Alternatively in smaller raids or PvP, you're better off switching your SS target according to which player is in need of it's shield and/or HoT the most.
Avenging Wrath
A 20% increase to healing but causes a 30sec blackout period with Bubble. This can be used while using Divine Plea to lessen the affects of 50% less healing, so instead you do 60% healing.
Divine Plea
This spell gives an insane amount of mana back, and makes Intellect an amazing stat. This was changed in 3.0.9 to be a 50% healing reduction, and requires smarter use because of it. You will in general be better served by using it during period of time of low tank damage, which easy to tell to predict on some fights and hard on others, instead of spamming it on cooldown. For best results, use Divine Plea in conjunction with tank cooldowns like Shield Wall. It is also useful to have a macro to easily remove your Divine Plea, if your tank takes some burst damage while it is up.
Casts Divine Plea like normal except if you right-click it, it removes Divine Plea.Code:#showtooltip Divine Plea
/cast [nobutton:2] Divine Plea
/cancelaura [button:2] Divine Plea
Divine Favor
This is unchanged with WotLK, but with IoL it warrants no longer being relegated to just a HL macro. Saving it to use with HS for when the tank gets a big burst can be useful. Don't worry too much if you forgot to use it. If you use DF + HL, then Shock right after, both spells will crit.
Divine Illumination
Try to save it for when you are going to be casting a lot of Holy Lights or have to renew Beacon. Do not let it sit off cooldown for too long since it is a potent mana saving tool.
Lay on Hands
Is significantly better to use in fights now, since it no longer drains all of your remaining mana as it did in Classic and TBC. It can be used to save a tank that needs a huge burst of healing or cast on yourself with Glyph of Divinity you will get 7800 mana, however as of 3.3, this ability will place Forbearance on the paladin if used on his or herself. When combined with the imp LoH talent, this will reduce the target's physical damage taken by 20% for a short time.
Judgement of Wisdom/Judgement of Light
A Holy Paladin needs to judge at least every minute. There are two main different strategies you can use for judging, you can either be trying to keep a 100% JotP up-time or to keep 100% up-time on the Judgement debuff. It costs a 1.5 second GCD per minute to keep JotP up and 4 GCDs per minute to keep JotP and Judgement debuff up. Either way with 15% extra haste you will be able to get more total healing spells cast even after using those GCDs.
- JoL is definitely worth keeping up since it heals 2% (2.1% with Divinity) of the attacker's health. If you have a Ret or Prot pally in the raid make sure they are casting a different Judgement than you. Since the Ret/Prot Pally will have a much more reliable uptime on their Judgement and sometimes you just can't spare the 1.5 second GCD (since it is a melee attack), it might be better for you to do JoL since 100% up-time JoW is a raid dps increase.
Divine Sacrifice
This spell is weak for raid healing on its own due to only helping at most 4 people, but when combined with DG it becomes very useful. This will last 10 seconds or if it is broken by damage if it is not canceled.
NOTE: This ability is bugged here on Warmane and will not break at 20% health. Divine Shield will not prevent you from taking the transference damage. As such, the macro listed below is highly recommended.
Divine Guardian
Divine Guardian will help mitigate 20% of all the damage taken by the raid for six seconds. If Divine Sacrifice ends early this effect will persist, so you can make use this macro:Hitting this macro twice will cast the Divine Guardian effect on your raid without taking any extra damage from Divine Sacrifice.Code:#showtooltip
/cancelaura Divine Sacrifice
/cast Divine Sacrifice
Hand of Salvation
This gives 20% threat reduction over its duration. A dps should call for it when they are close to pulling aggro.
You can use a similar macro for Hand of Sacrifice/ProtectionCode:#showtooltip Hand of Salvation
/cast [target=mouseover,nomodifier,exists] Hand of Salvation; [help] Hand of Salvation
Hand of Sacrifice
This is a good cooldown to use to help keep your tank/squishie raid member alive. Be careful, the target can take lot of damage which will be transferred to you. In 3.1 the amount of damage transferred is capped at your 100% of your health, so you may want to bubble when using this on the tank or have a heal ready for yourself because you could die otherwise.
Hand of Protection
It is good to use on raid member that gets aggro from a tank. Can also be used on tanks in some fights when you need to force a tank transition or to remove Bleeds on people, notably on Deathbringer Sarfang and Gormok the Impaler.
Aura Mastery
A solid one point talent. It is best used during fights with a lot of magic damage like on Twins during Vortex that is covered by our auras. It is off the GCD and doesn't cost any mana, so essentially 130 extra resistance, 600 armor, or more reflected damage for six seconds each time. Be aware that it doesn't improve the talented effect from Aura talents (like Improved Devotion Aura). It also affects Concentration Aura for silence immunity (also removes silence) and Crusader Aura for faster mount speed.
Imp RF
While this was designed for tanking, getting 6% less damage is one of the best raiding talents. Note if you pull aggro, then it is usually the tank's fault (with the exception when adds spawn away from the tank).
Holy Light vs. Flash of Light
Holy Light Focus
+ Big mana pool; 40k+ with 245+ gear if you use mostly Int gems
+ Spam Holy Light for 2-4+ minutes without outside help
+ Divine Plea restores a ton of mana, 10K+
+ Easier to play since you mostly focus on one heal and healing a tank via Beacon
- Slighter slower healing
- Sacred Shield absorbs less
- The FoL HoT isn't too useful for HL focus
Flash of Light Focus
+ All Heals are more sizable due to using more spell power gems
+ Sacred Shield absorbs more and FoL HoT is strong enough to be a useful tool
+ Flash of Light enables one to quickly top the raid's health off
- 10k+ less mana than the Holy Light build
- Mana pool will burn quickly if you don't mostly use FoL
- Divine Plea restores less mana
- Desire to keep 4/5 Tier 9 for the FoL HoT bonus
- This healing focus is a poor idea if you are the only Holy Pally in a your raid.
- Since you need to be constantly casting to deal with lower HPS, so Judgement debuff will have a lower up-time.
Casting Mechanics
To improve your HPS, you should always be casting (or waiting out a GCD after an instant). Anytime a spell ends, you should already be pressing the key trying to start your next spell (WoW processes events when you release the key). When you want maximize throughput, train yourself to start another spell regardless of what's going on, and you can move or cancel your current cast if necessary after you have another second to think. Speedy Actions (if you spam your keys) and Quartz/Castbars will help you know when to start pseudo spell queuing.
Gems
In general, I find that HL focus is best served by using all Brilliant (Intellect) gems and one Nightmare Tear, while FoL focus is served by matching the socket bonuses (so use Runed, Reckless, and Royal).
Meta - Insightful Earthsiege Diamond (5% chance to restore 600 mana with a 15 second ICD and 21 Int). The proc is approximately 70Mp5, varying on your ratio of HL to FoL. This is the best meta you can use for PvE.
Ember Skyflare Diamond may look good on paper, but it will take 5,725 Int to make it competitive with Insightful.
Yellow - Brilliant King's Amber for HL focus or Luminous Ametrine for FoL focus.
Red - Luminous Ametrine for HL focus only if you want the socket bonus/active meta or Runed Cardinal Ruby for FoL focus.
Blue - Dazzling Eye of Zul - is best option for HL paladin if they want the socket bonus/active meta or Royal Dreadstone for FoL focus.
Prismatic - Nightmare Tear is unique-equipped prismatic gem that counts as one of every color and gives +10 all stats. This is the alternative that I prefer if you want to use 20 int gems in all sockets except for one reserved for the Tear.
Jewelcrafting - 3 Brilliant Dragon's Eye
Set Bonuses
2 piece Tier 7
It is a very mediocre bonus, but notable for the increased chance to proc IoL.
4 piece Tier 7
This is an outstanding set bonus, it reduces Holy Light's cost by 5%.
2 piece Tier 8
This is also mediocre due to overhealing and being an inconsistent HoT.
4 piece Tier 8
In the optimal case this a huge increase to amount absorbed by Sacred Shield, but it requires the target to take damage twice within 4 seconds, and then again in the following 2 seconds to offer any advantage. So with tank's avoidance streaks it can have not as much of an impact in some circumstances. If a tank has a chance of dying between 4 to 6 seconds after being full, it can offer a whole additional proc. It is also really good in any fight that has persistent ticking aura, like Twins.
2 piece Tier 9
This is a situation orientated decent bonus if your judgment is being used by your group and you don't Judge every 20 seconds.
4 piece Tier 9
This is an outstanding bonus for FoL focused Paladins, otherwise it is mediocre.
2 piece Tier 10
This makes DI into a useful healing increase cooldown. You can combine this with Divine Plea to help offset the penalty, as well as use it during large damage spikes to conserve mana and assist your throughput.
4 piece Tier 10
This is situational useful bonus. If you end up having to move and cast Shock often, this bonus will help you get back into casting HL faster.
Librams
Libram of Renewal - This is a huge increase in healing output because of how much mana it saves. It reduces the cost of your Holy Light spell by almost 10%, so it is the best libram for HL focus that you can get even when defeating Arthas in Icecrown. Illumination works off of base mana, so you will still get the same amount of mana back from crits.
Wrathful Gladiator's Libram of Justice - This is outstanding for FoL focus.
Libram of Veracity - This is useful for more throughput over mana savings; a good time to use this item is for Valithria Dreamwalker if you go inside the portals.
Libram of Blinding Light - This is a nearly useless libram, skip picking it up.
Trinkets
Here are some notable trinkets, listed in ascending order of how Rawr thinks they are useful for a HL focused Paladin:
Meteorite Crystal
Tears of the Vanquished
Talisman of Resurgence - The active can be used to semi-counter the healing decrease from Divine Plea.
Pandora's Plea
Sliver of Pure Ice
Purified Lunar Dust
Solace of the Fallen/Defeated (Heroic)
Solace of the Fallen/Defeated
Darkmoon Card: Greatness (Intellect)
Glyphs
Personally I use Holy Light, Beacon of Light, and Seal of Wisdom for my glyphs. Here are all of the options you have currently:
Major Glyphs
Glyph of Seal of Wisdom/Glyph of Seal of Light
SoW is most of the time the better glyph, since you have a 15 ppm chance to get mana returned when Judging, Shield of Righteousness, and auto attacking and it makes all your heals 5% cheaper. Since SoW is ppm you get more procs with a slower weapon. If you need more throughput (such as FoL focus), use SoL. You will always want to use one of these two glyphs.
Glyph of Holy Light
It does not smart heal, but rather heals 5 random targets in range. This can be very effective at healing when the whole raid takes damage. It can do a substantial amount of healing in some fights, so I wouldn't go anywhere without it unless you spam FoL.
Glyph of Beacon of Light
This Glyph saves the cast of one BoL every 3 mins. Its values comes from saving a GCD every 3 mins, reduces the chance that BoL will end when you still need it but can't spare a GCD to refresh it. Taking 2-3 seconds to refresh Beacon/SS together is extremely dangerous since both are minute cooldowns with Divine Guardian.
Glyph of Divinity
If you cast LoH on yourself with this you will get double the mana returned for 7800 mana or 3900 mana if cast on someone else. This it great for fights where you are crunched on mana and don't need the burst heal/tank cooldown from a Lay on Hands. It is situational, since you will probably want to save LoH for burst "oh crap" healing. Note that casting LoH on yourself will cause Forbearance and LoH cannot be used on yourself if Forbearance is active.
Glyph of Flash of Light
Increases the Critical Strike chance of FoL by 5%. This is a strong bonus for FoL focus.
Glyph of Holy Shock
While Holy Shock can be a good spell, it isn't something you should use on cooldown. On fights with a lot of movement it can be worthwhile to use this Glyph, but that is highly situational, making this glyph a lesser choice in the majority of PvE situations. However, this is a very powerful PvP Glyph, especially in 3v3.
Minor Glyphs
Glyph of Lay on Hands - Very useful minor for Holy.
Glyph of Blessing of Kings - You might need to rebuff Kings on someone who gets a battle res, so this will save mana.
Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom ÔÇô If you ever cast single target Wisdom on yourself this is good to use.
Glyph of the Wise - This reduces the mana cost of SoW by 50%, very useful minor glyph as HL focus if you are battle resurrected.
Consumables
Potions
While you can only use 1 per fight, and you do have some choice about which that will be.
Runic Mana Potion - The good old bland mana potion.
Endless Mana Potion - The mana potion that never runs out (Alchemist only).
Potion of Nightmares - This got changed from its former brethren, so that it lasts 6 seconds of being inactive and is not able be cleansed. This is an extra 1200 mana over Runic.
Potion of Speed - This could be useful in some fights if you know there will be 15 seconds where you will need to maximize healing throughput.
Well Fed
These are the 4 relevant different buff types, but you can get different food that give the same benefit. Just pick them how you would your gems.
Firecracker Salmon (46 Spell power, 40 Stamina)
Imperial Manta Steak (40 Haste Rating and Stamina)
Spiced Worm Burger (40 Critical Strike Rating and Stamina)
Flasks
Flask of Distilled Wisdom - Still a solid option for regen and throughput even though it is from Vanilla.
Flask of Pure Mojo - Best option for regen.
Flask of the Frost Wyrm - The best option for a throughput increase.
Elixirs
Guru's Elixir and Mighty Thoughts beats out Distilled Wisdom.
Enchants
Enchant choices (from head to toe):
Head - 30 Spell Power and 10 Mp5 or 30 Spell Power and 20 Critical Strike Rating (Suggested)
Shoulder - 24 Spell Power and 8 Mp5 or 24 Spell Power and 15 Critical Strike Rating (Suggested)
Cloak ÔÇô 23 Haste
Chest - 10 to all stats (suggested) or 250 Mana
Bracers ÔÇô 16 Intellect (HL) or 30 Spell Power (FoL)
Gloves ÔÇô 28 Spell Power
Legs ÔÇô 50 Spell Power and 30 Stamina
Shield - 25 Intellect
Weapon - 63 Spell Power or 30 Intellect
Boots ÔÇô Tuskarr's Vitality
Professions
Listed are the benefits you get from being each profession and you must keep it to retain these benefits.
Alchemy
Mixology gives 47 Spell Power, 20 Intellect or 20 Mp5 depending on Flask used and you get double duration. Other conveniences: [Endless Mana Potion], Crazy Alchemist's Potion which is the same mana as Runic along with health and a random potion affect, and the ability to make your own uncut epic gems. In addition, you can use [Flask of the North] to gain 47 spell power if you don't want to use a normal flask.
Blacksmithing
Socket Glove/Socket Bracer - Gives you 40 Int or whatever stat/rating you want via two additional gem sockets.
Enchanting
Enchant Ring - Greater Spellpower x2 - Gives you 46 Spell Power.
Engineering
Hyperspeed Accelerators - This use effect can be used during Divine Plea to lessen the downside of Plea and for burst parts of encounter such as Phase 3 Festergut. Other useful tools: Nitro Boosts gives 24 crit rating and a 5s burst of speed and 27 spell power to cloak instead of Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed. Assuming you use a Mana Potion Injector, Engineers will get 25% more out of Runic Mana Potions used inside the Injector.
Inscription
Master's Inscription of the Crag or Master's Inscription of the Storm - 46 Spell Power increase over The Sons of Hodir exalted version.
Jewelcrafting
Dragon's Eye Gems - Gives you 42 int or additional item points with the stats or rating of your choice via three dragon's eye gems.
Leatherworking
Fur Lining - Spell Power - Offers you a 46 spell power upgrade over the regular spell power enchant.
Tailoring
Darkglow Embroidery - gives 44 Mp5 over time or Lightweave Embroidery - gives 73 sp over time instead of Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed.
Skinning
Master of Anatomy - 40 crit rating.
Mining
Toughness - 60 stamina.
Herbalism
Lifeblood - Small self-only HoT that is off the GCD.
AddOns
A good UI for a healer is near essential, since you can be much more effective at healing than using the default UI. Here are some suggestions for AddOns:
Grid (Raid Frames)
Grid is a raid frame addon that I highly recommend for any healer. It makes it much easier to see the health of everyone in your raid, and is very customizable to fit your needs. GridStatusRaidDebuff can show raid's fight specific debuffs. How to setup Grid or other addons is out of the scope of this thread.
Clique (Click Casting)
With a click casting add-on you assign a mouse button (like middle mouse) to a spell, and when you press that button on a unit frame it casts that spell at the unit. I like using this with Cleanse, Hand spells, and Flash of Light, because I find I have better reaction times with it. Some people like assigning a button (or key-button combination) to all their healing spells.
PallyPower (Blessing Assignments)
This will make your life keeping everyone blessed much easier. I am sure a lot of us have had their frustrations with buffing here on Warmane and this AddOn makes it significantly better then not using it. An alternative is ZOMGBuffs.
Talent Builds
Here are a few sample PvE builds that will give anyone a good starting point.
Raid spec with Divine Guardian/Devotion Aura (51/20/0)
Raid spec alternative Divine Guardian, 2/2 LoH, Benediction (52/17/2)
Low gear/5-man crit spec (51/5/15)
Use this spec for starting out at lower gear levels, it's a good idea to swap into 51/20/0 or 52/17/2 for 10/25 man raids.
Arena Holy-Cleanse/Resist (54/17/0)
Arena Holy-Improve HoJ/Aggressive
Shar's Arena Spec
This is the one I used in my gladiator (retail) days.
ToGC25 Healing Strategies
Beasts P1
ÔÇó Who to heal? Most of the damage is on the tanks. After a tank switch, the previous tank will still be taking damage from the stacking Impale - Beacon one tank and heal the other.
ÔÇó When to Plea? Gormok's damage goes up as more snobolds are thrown out, so try to Plea early on and then save the next one until the phase transition.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? Fire - move out of it. Snobolds can interrupt spells on anyone in their melee range, so don't stand next to anyone with a snobold.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: If you get a snobold, avoid the interrupt by fake casting (start casting and interrupt it after 300 ms). At the end of the phase, use HoP on a tank with Impale stacks to remove them.
Beasts P2
ÔÇó Who to heal? Ideally, Beacon the tank of the worm that you're not killing so that your HL glyph heals can hit the melee attacking the other one.
ÔÇó When to Plea? Plea during phase transitions and while the worms are submerged. The submerge doesn't last that long, so you may want to cancel Plea when the worms reemerge.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? Acid - don't stand in it. If you get the fire or acid debuffs at a bad time, it's probably better to bubble it off than to stop healing and move.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: Use Divine Guardian or AM Fire Resist aura when the raid is taking lots of damage from Burning Bile.
Beasts P3
ÔÇó Who to heal? The tank. You can use BoL on the tank to help heal the raid when they are frozen.
ÔÇó When to Plea? When Icehowl jumps to the middle of the room, but before he stuns you, hit Plea and you'll get the full duration.
ÔÇó What to watch out for?: Ferocious Butt lining up with another melee attack can be very spiky damage. Turn on your boss mod's timer for the Butt cooldown.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: Melee for Seal of Wisdom mana while Icehowl is stunned, but stand at max melee range so you don't get knocked back by his whirl. AM Frost Aura when Icehowl is breathing frost on part of the stunned raid. HoP a random ranged dps on p3.
Jaraxxus
ÔÇó Who to heal? Beacon the Jaraxxus tank, heal the raid and add tank(s). Watch for Incinerate Flesh targets. Incinerate Flesh affects Beacon, so heals on the IF target does not heal the Beacon. You should not move the Beacon, just keep healing the IF target until it is safe.
ÔÇó When to Plea? Whenever adds are down and the raid is stable.
ÔÇó What to watch out for?: The green fire. If you get Mistress Kiss, bubble it off or don't use non-instant spells.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: When a Mistress of Pain is out, AMing Concentration Aura will let you keep healing without being silenced by the debuff for six seconds.
Faction Champions
ÔÇó Who to heal? Cloth wearers and other people that are the target of the melee mobs. Keep up with cleanses.
ÔÇó When to Plea? After the first few targets are finished, it is safe to use Plea.
ÔÇó What to watch out for?: Do not cleanse Unstable Affliction and move if a melee is attacking you.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: HoP and HoF are very useful to save raid members. HoS/Divine Guardian are useful to help save the clothie/raid.
Twins (clump and soakers strat)
ÔÇó Who to heal? Beacon one tank, heal either the other tank or the raid. Soakers are higher priority than the average raid member.
ÔÇó When to Plea? Incoming damage is lowest just before a new set of orbs spawn. This fight is also short enough that if you're conservative, you may be able to omit Plea completely.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? Touch of Light/Darkness on raid members. Extra damage on one tank while the other tank's mob is shielded.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: Bubble through Vortex rather than moving for it. You'll probably be in melee range of at least one twin; that means plenty of chances to melee for Seal of Wisdom mana. AM Fire Resist aura when Light vortex is cast (it deals fire damage).
Anub'Arak
ÔÇó Who to heal? Your assigned tank and Beacon the other tank. You sometimes you may help with Penetrating Cold (PC) on raid members.
ÔÇó When to Plea? When Anub is chasing people.
ÔÇó What to watch out for?: The scarabs and the chased target. You can help control scarabs with Holy Wrath and Hammer of Justice.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: HoP the person being chased in P2 to extend the kiting time. Unglyph HL so the random healing does not make the encounter harder. The extra healing is mostly harmful on phase 3. AM Frost Aura when PC is out in phase 3. Divine Guardian (use your /cancelaura macro otherwise you will likely die) late into phase 3.
ICC25 Normal Healing Strategies
Marrowgar
ÔÇó Who to heal? Beacon the MT, heal the OT(s). You should also have enough time between Saber Lashes to heal Impaled raid members. During Bone Storm, heal whoever needs it and let your Beacon with its long range keep the tank topped off.
ÔÇó When to Plea? This fight is short enough to not require Plea. If you need to use it, do it in conjunction with a tank cooldown or during Bone Storm.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? Don't be standing next to the tanks when Bone Storm ends.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: AM Frost Aura (the "fire" is all frost) during Bone Storm. Get inside Marrowgar's hit box so you don't need to move. Use Divine Sacrifice when moving back into position because of potential stacking issues with the tanks. Be ready to DF-Shock-FoL combo yourself.
Lady Deathwhisper
ÔÇó Who to heal? Beacon one add tank and heal the raid. In phase 2, swap Beacons when the tanks change and raid heal the ghost and frost damage. Keep everyone topped off in P2.
ÔÇó When to Plea? When most or all adds are down.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? Death and Decay is randomly dropped. Move out of this immediately. Watch for Ghosts, as they deal a decent bit of damage if they hit you.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: AM Frost Aura for Frostbolt Volley. Use Hammer of Justice to help CC mind controlled players.
Gunship
ÔÇó Who to heal? Anyone, primarily tanks.
ÔÇó When to Plea? You will not need to use it.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? The damage on the tank will spike as the debuff grows, so you may need to use cooldowns at lower gear levels.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: You can use the rocket pack Use effect which causes a debuff to slow the add's attack speed.
Deathbringer Saurfang
ÔÇó Who to heal? Beacon on one of your Tanks, top off raid members attacked by Adds. This fight is frankly a total joke to heal on Warmane and requires little attention.
ÔÇó When to Plea? Damage is light until late in the fight. Plea should not be necessary outside of Heroic Modes, however you should be in Melee range of Saurfang, so auto-attacks with SoW can negate the need to Plea at all. Do so early if you must.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? If you have Righteous Fury on, you may pull aggro on Blood Beasts. Move and use Hammer of Justice to ensure you don't get hit.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: Use your taunts to save a ranged who is about to get hit by a Blood Beast. Usually they'll die before they get to you. Be careful not to taunt Saurfang. BoP someone with a Blood Boil debuff.
Festergut
ÔÇó Who to heal? Put beacon on the current tank. Heal raid members, particularly those debuffed with spores or gas. When the tank swap is about to occur chain holy light on the new tank and move the beacon when the switch is stabilized.
ÔÇó When to Plea? ? Tank damage is lightest after each exhale. Using Plea during 2 or 3 inhales will risk a tank death.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? Tanks will take massive damage after the third inhale. Coordinate the use of your external cooldowns (Hand of Sac, improved LoH, and Divine Sac) with the tanks and other healers.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: Stand in the melee range and SoW him whenever its safe.
Rotface
ÔÇó Who to heal? Beacon on the MT. Heal raid members from slime spray damage and the targets of the mutated injection (this debuff reduces healing received).
ÔÇó When to Plea? Use early before the ooze spawn rate increases.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? The slime tank may need Hand of Freedom if a small slime puddle is in his path. The big puddles do not slow. Move yourself after the big slime finishes the four second cast. Most guilds choose one healer to handle the mutated injection diseases on this fight. A Paladin can cleanse the debuff once they are close to the big ooze. Later in the fight, when multiple diseases are out, prioritize cleansing on the person closest to the big ooze, so the new small ooze will merge in quickly. This reduces the danger of having two big oozes up at once.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: All of the damage is shadow/nature, so AM has no effect. Stand in melee and use SoW auto-swings to regen mana.
Professor Putricide
ÔÇó Who to heal? Beacon on the tank. Heal the raid, particularly the ones targeted by the oozes or clouds. Remember Beacon has a 60 yard range, so the tank can still get healing while you are topping people off. During phase three, use Holy Shock as necessary to keep mobile.
ÔÇó When to Plea? Use Plea just before Tear gas is cast (80% and 35% health). Whenever the raid is topped off and a new experiment isn't about to spawn is also a good time.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? Malleable Ooze (the bouncing green Ooze) debuffs you with -200% haste. This pretty much disables you outside of Holy Shock and LoH for 15 seconds.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: Hand of Protection can force a green ooze to retarget. SoW the boss as you are running around to avoid the various green oozes/patches/balls. Use AM Shadow Aura when the tanks start to get 3 or more stacks of mutated plague.
Blood Prince Council
ÔÇó Who to heal? Beacon one of the tanks and heal the raid. Cleanse Glittering Sparks if you can.
ÔÇó When to Plea? Sometime that is not during the empowered Shock Vortex.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? Shock Vortexes, spreading out for empowered shock vortex, and soaking the empowered flame ball.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: Use Divine Guardian during the empowered Shock Vortex to reduce the raid's damage. AM Fire Resistance Aura when the empowered flare is close to hitting a player.
Blood-Queen Lana'thel
ÔÇó Who to heal? Heal the main tank and beacon the off-tank. You can throwing occasional Shocks or FoL's to help raid heals if it's really necessary.
ÔÇó When to Plea? Plea later on in the fight, in between links cooldown and when you have Bloodlust/Heroism up.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? Move if you have the purple flame or run to the middle if you get the link. Don't use DI on a wipe unless you can DI the person on the steps leading into her room, since the boss respawns very quickly.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: AM Shadow Aura to mitigate the constant AoE Shroud of Sorrow, the rest of the damage cannot be resisted. Use DiSac on an Air phase (the first one is 2:10 and the next is 1:40 later). It is helpful to Bubble/Human Racial on one of the fears.
Valithria Dreamwalker
ÔÇó Who to heal? Beacon Valithria and heal yourself, stand near her hitbox for GoHL splash as it will double dip into your % healing modifiers. Using Seal of Light, the 245 badge libram, and 51/5/15 spec are good healing choices, assuming you are going inside the portals. In 10 man raids, spam HL on Valithria as Beacon does not seem to work on 10 man.
ÔÇó When to Plea? While inside the portal that the boss spawns. However, you will not need to Plea if you are using the
portals to maintain your buff stack.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? When the portals are up, jump inside to get a healing/mp5 buff. Try to go every portal or make some arrangement with the other healers so the same healer goes into every portal so you can get a large stack.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: Use Crusader Aura while in the dream world. AM Crusader Aura to go even faster. Take every portal. When you get a high stack (30+), if a Holy Priest is available ask for Guardian Spirit on her, ask for a Bloodlust, pop Wings and DI all at the same time (if using Tier 10), and then spam HL. AM Fire Aura if the Blazing mob is casting its AoE spell. AM Frost Aura is better if people are slow to interrupt the Frost Lich. Frost Aura is generally better.
Sindragosa
ÔÇó Who to heal? Beacon the tank and heal the raid. The tanks take huge damage on Phase 3 as debuffs get more numerous. Beacon requires LoS to heal, so sometimes you have to get out from behind the Ice blocks letting Mystic Buffet stack.
ÔÇó When to Plea? While running away after you get Icy Grip or during the break block phases before Phase 3. Cancel Plea as necessary when running back.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? Watch your Unchained Magic stacks so your stack doesn't go past 5.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: The encounter is RNG based with how much effective healing you can do in phase 3. Save bubble for phase 3 when your tank will take more damage and you have a 5+ stacks of Unstable Magic. Aura Mastery + Frost Aura anytime the raid is on Sindragosa helps a lot.
Arthas, the Lich King
ÔÇó Who to heal? Beacon the OT and heal the main tank then the raid. If you're helping with raid healing when Infest is cast (where every player must be above 90%), make sure the tanks are fine. If you get ported inside Frostmourne, make sure the friendly NPC is at full health and that you HoJ the target when it casts, just use a few shocks and judgements for damage.
ÔÇó When to Plea? Use when needed. You should set up a Plea rotation with your other Holy Paladin (25 Man) so that you're never both using Plea and once, and one another know when the other is using Plea. If your second tank healer is not a Holy Paladin, simply let them know you're using Plea a few seconds prior to doing it, so they aren't surprised by the sudden drop in healing, leading to a possible tank death.
ÔÇó What to watch out for? On phase 1, cleanse the Necrotic Plague after 3-4 seconds. On phase 2 and 4, if you get Defile or see the void zone pool, make sure you run away asap. Cast DiSac/DG or AM Frost Aura on transitions from 3 -> 4 to minimize the raids damage taken from remorseless winter while maneuvering onto the outermost ring. On phase 3 and 4, Time your HL to hit after the Soul Reaper debuff hits.
ÔÇó Cool tricks: AM Shadow Aura during the various Lich King shadow damage attacks. In phase 1, you can cast JoL on both LK and shambling horrors by alternating your Judges between them every 10 seconds and the extra mana is handy. Use Seal of Vengeance at the final phase to add some damage and rebuff Kings/Might (whichever isn't covered) as well.
Ruby Sanctum Normal Healing Strategies
Halion
ÔÇó Who to heal? Beacon tank and heal people with Consumption, stand in the physical realm in phase 3, where raid damage is much lighter
ÔÇó When to Plea? Anytime in phase 1, avoid in phase 3 when Corporeality is above 50%
ÔÇó What to watch out for? Constant movement in phase 2; Tank damage rises massively in phase 3 if Corporeality hits 70%
ÔÇó Cool tricks: Should be able to stand in melee throughout the whole of phase 2. Consumption effect can be Cleansed, even though it shows as a curse. Use Fire Aura for the physical realm.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How does the ICC buff affect me?
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A: The 5%-30% buff adds to healing by a percentage but what is interesting is also affects Sacred Shield. That spell could use some more power, so as the buff gets larger at least Sacred Shield should be worth justifying a higher up-time.
Q: What is the healing rotation?
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A: As most of you should know by now, there is no rotation for any healing class. You have to make quick decisions and a situation can change in a millisecond. An excellent healer can predict incoming damage and from that and start healing before the damage actually hits. You may need to learn some tanking avoidance mechanics before you can perfect this prediction ability.
Q: Should I use Flash of Light or Holy Light?
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A: It's always situational and you have to learn yourself. However one thing that you should remember is to not constant spam HL, Flash more often to get up the FoL HoT on the tank and top off raid members using FoL instead of HL, you'll save mana and doing the same amount of healing. Which spell to use also depends on the healer setup, for example if your guild have amazing druids, it makes raid healing via FoL spam a lot less useful and leaves you to focus on tank healing with HL and Beacon.
Q: Which of these two items are better for me?
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A: In general, haste/mp5 pieces are the best itemized for Holy Paladins and in some cases Mail will be better itemized than Plate. While Tier 10 does not have haste/mp5 itemization, that haste/crit or mp5/crit are decent to use if it is a more than 10 item levels above what you have. Bear in mind the effects of Intellect, Haste, Mp5 and Crit I explained earlier.
Q: How should I gem my gear?
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A: Short answer, Intellect. Long answer, a starting Holy Paladin should be gearing up with spell power/mp5 so your heals will keep your group alive. When picking stats, you should shore up your weakness. If you are spamming HL and people die before it lands, then you need more haste. If you are using mostly Flash of Light and the tank is dying, try using more spell power or switching to HL and focusing on getting more Intellect. If you are running out of mana, try to use items/enchants that favor Mp5, Int, and to lesser extent crit rating rather than focusing on haste or spell power and remember that with SoW active if you are able to auto-attack something between spell casts, do it. Try things out and see what works for best for you.
Q: Should I get this higher item level item over my current item?
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A: In most cases, yes. I would get the minimum of between 600-676 Haste and 35% Spell (not Holy Spell) and then focus on getting more Mp5 and Haste. For HL focus, if a piece of gear provides an Int upgrade (20 or more Int and/or extra sockets) then upgrade to it even if it has 0 Mp5. For FoL focus, get the highest item level healing item to get the most spell power. Work on getting the Tier 10 Helm and Shoulders.
Thanks for reading!
