Greetings, my name is Shaterhand. I've been playing the WOTLK expansion on this server since 2010, going back to the Molten days. After 10 years of playing holy paladin alongside this beautiful community, I've decided to share my experience in hopes that it will help anyone interested.
Table of contents
1. Gameplay
1.1 - Toolkit
1.2 - Playstyle
2. Talents & glyphs
2.1 - Talents
2.2 - Talent builds
2.3 - Glyphs
3. Stats & gems, gear & enchants
3.1 - Stats & Gems
3.2 - Gear & Enchants
3.3 - Consumables
4. Professions
5. Races
6. Addons & Macros
6.1 - Addons
6.2 - Macros
7. FAQ
1. Gameplay
1.1 – Toolkit
Spoiler:Show Holy paladins are simply the strongest healers out there in this expansion. They have a variety of very useful spells and externals, they can heal 2 targets to full hp at the same time because of beacon, their healing output is insane, it is pretty easy to play and is pretty much mandatory for every LoD/RS25hc raid. As an introduction, in this section we will go through the most important spells that a holy paladin has to offer, so you can have an idea of how it works:
Aura Mastery – Doubles the effect of your current active aura for 6 sec. For example, for fire aura, you will have 260 fire resistance for the next 6 sec, instead of 130. This affects the whole raid (assuming everyone is in range of your aura). Very strong CD.
Beacon of Light – This is basically a buff, that can be applied to another friendly target and any healing you do to another party/raid member, is also done to the target with beacon of light on him. In order words, you can heal 2 targets at the same time, for the same amount. This is one of the reasons why a holy paladin is considered the healer responsible for tanks, because it can keep both of them alive at the same time. Best healing spell in the game.
Divine Illumination – Your most powerful healing cd, with two T10 pieces. By default, this only reduces the cost of your spells by 50% for 15 sec, but with the 2-set bonus from T10 (http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/item=51272), it also makes your healing spells 35% stronger. Unlike http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/spell=31884, you can use it while you are affected by http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/spell=63148 or anything else that causes forbearance.
Divine Plea – Refunds 25% of your total mana over 15 sec, but while it is active, your healing is reduced by 50%. This is your main source of gaining mana through the fight. You should use it on cd, especially on the long fights. With experience, you will learn when to use it properly and when to hold it for a bit before you use it. You can also use it with a healing cd, if needed. Works good with http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/spell=31842.
Holy Light – This is our main healing ability. You should be casting this, 98% of time you spend in a fight. With http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/item=41106, which is a must have, your holy light also does aoe healing, close to the target you’re healing. Try to pre-heal important abilities with holy light, such as, infest, soul reaper, green ozze explosion on PP, etc. The ideal cast time is between 1.2 – 1.3 sec. Anything lower than 1.2 is even better, but comes at the cost of intel gems.
Flash of Light – This is the low budget version of holy light and it doesn’t do any aoe healing. It costs far less mana tho, 291 compared to HL 1102. You should use FoL only when there are 1-2 targets taking dmg at a time, mostly when only the tank takes dmg and if it’s not high enough, that holy light would be necessary. (usually, around 10k steady damage, can be healed with FoL)
If you cast FoL on a target affected by http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/spell=53601, because of the http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/spell=53576 talent, you will apply a hot on the target, that heals for 100% the amount of FoL, over 12 sec.
Holy Shock – Instant cast spell, low heal. You should use this when someone is about to die, if he is like 2-3k health and there is incoming damage that would kill him. Can also be used simply to fill up someone to full hp or if you are moving and you cannot cast. If your holy shock crits, it will make your next FoL an instant cast, this is very useful if you need to move for a long period of time and you cannot cast, or if you need to quickly heal multiple targets to save them.
Holy Wrath – A 3 sec aoe stun for undead and demons. Commonly used at LK to stun the valkyrs.
Lay on Hands – Heals the target to full hp instantly. Used mostly on tanks, when you cannot cast holy light or when you are not going to heal them in time, but any target that would die without lay, is a good target to use it on.
Sacred Shield – A small absorb shield, which scales with the icc buff btw, and also scales with +75.00% of spell power . Should be kept 24/7, on the tank is taking the most dmg, usually the MT. Feel free to switch sacred shield to any target you need to apply the FoL hot on it, for example, on Sindragosa, you should look to apply the HoT, to as many people as possible, as soon as the tombs are assigned.
Seal of Wisdom – Gives your attacks a chance to restore 4% of your total mana and also reduces the cost of your spells by 5% if you use the http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/item=41109. The chance to restore mana is pretty high, as most of your auto-attack will restore mana, so whenever you’re running low on mana, all you need to do, is to start hitting the boss and you will regain your mana in no time. (while you are casting, your character cannot melee auto-attack, you need to stop casting in order to start your auto-attacks) This is simply the best seal to use, as more mana = more healing.
Divine Protection – Major cd, reduces the dmg you take by 50%.
Divine Sacrifice – The best raid cd in the game. You use this mostly for the second part of it, which reduces the dmg taken by 20% for 6 sec, this affects the whole raid (http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/spell=53530), and you cancel the party redirect dmg part, so you don’t die. Commonly used for abilities that deal heavy aoe dmg to the whole raid or if it the tank needs an cd to survive.
Divine Shield – A.k.a Bubble, makes you immune to all dmg for 12 sec. Should be used to survive mechanics that otherwise would kill you or if you need to move because of a mechanic and thus, you cannot stand still and heal, you can bubble so you can heal the raid.
Hand of Freedom – Remove any slow effect for 10 sec. Used at Halion, inside, to counter the slow after you get dispelled from http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/spell=74792.
Hand of Protection – Makes the target immune to all physical attacks for 10 sec. This is mostly used at Professor Putricide, whenever the red ozze is not killed within the first assigned target, it will retarget and if the ozze reaches the new target, it will wipe your raid. So, in order to buy more time, after the ozze has chosen a new target, if you HoP him, the ozze will stop chasing that target and start retargeting again. This is extremely useful for when people are out of position and are too close to the ozze.
Hand of Sacrifice – Redirects 30% of the damage taken by the target, to you. Very useful for fights like LK and Halion, in which the dmg is heavily focused on the tanks. If you use Hand of Protection or Divine Protection while you sacrificed someone, it will complete negate the redirected dmg that you are supposed to get.
Hand of Salvation – Reduces the threat generated by the target by 2% every 1 sec, for 10 sec. Extremely useful for dps that have a lot of threat and that doesn’t stop from dpsing the boss.
Avenging Wrath – Increases your healing spells by 20% for 20 sec. This is your second-best healing cd, after Divine Illumination, because its just 20% and also you cannot use within 30 sec after using any other spell that causes forbearance on yourself.
Judgement of Light – Grants attacks made against the target, a chance to restore 2% of the attacker’s health. Basically, the whole raid will get healed, if you keep this debuff 24/7 on the target. Even though it last for 20 sec and its cd is 10, so in theory, you could only use it every 20 sec, to keep the debuff up, there is always a chance to miss, and thus, you can end up having a period of time without the debuff up, therefor, you should use it on cd. It also counts as melee attack and can restore 4% mana, because of Seal of Wisdom, another reason to use it as often as possible. Even though you should use it as often as possible, use it only during safe windows to do so. For more information on when to use judgement, please refer to the TIP from the "Playstyle" section.
1.2 – Playstyle
Spoiler:Show To play a holy paladin is not really rocket science, if you have been playing this game for a while, chances are that you already heard people saying things like “just beacon the tank and spam holy light”, which is true, to some extent, that’s what you’re going to do for the majority of the time, but if you want to be a good healer, you need to do much more than that. It’s the little things, that stack up and makes the difference between an average healer and a very good healer. In this section will try to explain the “rotation” or “gameplay”, if you may, of a holy paladin, how to heal properly, how to manage your mana, how to handle unfavorable situation, things to improve, etc:
Healing
- The beginning of the fight: first thing you want to do, before the fight even starts, is to Beacon of Light the main tank, or the tank that is going to take the most dmg, and Sacred Shield him. Also, it is ideal to pre-cast Holy Light so your tank gets healed asap, from the first hit that he will get from the boss and also to gain Light's Grace. The Next thing is to use judge on the boss, so you can get your haste buff Judgement of the Pure and by doing so, you will now have the lowest cast time on your holy light and in addition to that, you will apply the healing debuff Judgement, that will heal the whole raid when they attack the target. This is a standard rotation, that you need to do for almost any fight.
- Rest of the fight: Once you’ve done all of the above, keeping spamming Holy Light for the majority of the fight. Use Holy Shock when you need to heal a low amount of damage taken, when you cannot stand still to cast, or when someone is low hp and you need to heal them asap, because otherwise they would die from the next tick of damage. Same principles apply for FoL, if you crit with Holy Shock, you will get an instant FoL cast, very good to heal people up quickly or when you cannot stand still to cast. Even if you can cast without any issues, you can still sometimes spam FoL over holy light, if the damage taken is only on 1-2 persons and it’s a very low amount, so you can save some mana. Keep Beacon of Light & Sacred Shield up the whole time and same for the Judgement on the main target. It is ideal to keep the judgement uptime to 100% and if the fight involves multiple targets, you should always judge whatever target is currently the main focus for dps. Otherwise, holy light, holy light, holy light, holy light…. you get the point.
TIP: Regarding Judging on CD - Obviously, if there is a lot of damage going out, you shouldn't waste the GCD just because your judge came off CD, but first you want to stabilize the tank/raid and then use the judgement when you have a small safe window to do so. To make it easier to understand the whole process, I've attached the logical scheme below:
If you decided to use judge and your tank or someone else died as a result of it, or if you had to use an unplanned cd to avoid that, then it means that you haven't used judgement during a safe window. (it wasn't safe to use it during that time)
Mana management
- Managing your mana as healer is very important. If you run out of mana, most likely it will be a wipe, but the more mana you have, the more healing you can do. Therefore, your goal is to maximize the amount of mana gained/restored through-out the fight, so you can do the maximum amount of healing and if you still run out of mana, you at least did everything you could to avoid that.
- Your primary source of mana gained/restored is Divine Plea, second should be Illumination and Seal of Wisdom third. To maximize your mana gained, obviously you need to use everything that restores mana as soon as you can use it and without over-restoring, meaning that you shouldn’t use something that will restore more than 100% of your mana, as it will be a waste. So, personally, from the start of the fight, as soon as I drop to 90% mana, I use the meteorite trinket combined with arcane torrent, afterwards, I use the first Divine Plea around 80-85% mana (it depends how much you will be casting after you use it, so you don’t over-gain mana) and for the rest of the fight I use divine plea pretty much on cd, unless I will be over-gaining mana. If you have innervates available, and the other healers don’t need it or if you are solo healing, to also maximize the mana gained from innervates, you should ask for the first one around 75% ish mana, but only after you used Divine Plea already. Generally, in standard comps, you shouldn’t be needing innervates, if there is no unnecessary dmg taken and if the other healers are doing their job, as the other sources of mana should be enough, so that the innervates can go to other healers, that don’t really have a lot of ways to gain mana, such as shamans, so try to ask for innervates only when you are in a really bad spot with mana and you can’t stop healing to auto-attack, to regain mana. To make things easier, the usage list of mana resources looks like this:
At the start of the fight: meteorite + arcane torrent > Divine Plea > innervates, and afterwards use all of them on CD, but try no to over-gain mana.
- If you’re still running out of mana, don’t forget to use http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/item=42545. Personally, I only use them when I drop below 25% mana, as I don’t like to waste them. For the Lich King fight, on HC, you can use multiple mana potions, because when you get out of frostmourne, the cd of your potion resets. (it starts counting down). As a last resort, if you used everything for mana, you can always stop healing and start auto-attack a target, until you make enough mana back from http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/spell=20168.
Cooldown usage
Healing CD:
Hyperspeed – A small healing cd, that mostly reduces your casting time of holy light by 0.1 sec ish. This should be use pretty frequently, since it has only 1 min cd.
Glowing Twilight Scale – Small aoe cd, should be use when there is aoe dmg taken, to heal multiple people. It’s pretty good to combine it with Hyperspeed, and if needed, with another healing cd.
Divine Illumination – The best healing cd there is. 35% healing increased and 50% reduces cost of spells. This should be used first over wings, in most cases, because of the reduced mana cost part, as it results in more mana overall.
Avenging Wrath – Second best healing cd, should be used whenever D. Illumination is not available. Keep in mind that you cannot use any spell that would cause forbearance within 30 sec of using wings and vice versa.
Externals & Raid CD:
Hand of Sacrifice – Redirects 30% of the damage taken by the target, to you. Very useful for fights like LK and Halion, in which the dmg is heavily focused on the tanks. The soul reaper mechanic is a good example where this cd is very useful.
Divine Sacrifice – 20% dmg reduction for the whole raid. You should cancel the party part (check the macro section). Use it for mechanics that will deal heavy aoe damage. Can also be used as a cd for the tank If needed.
Aura Mastery – Doubles the effect of your current active aura for 6 sec. Same as DSAC, should be mostly used for aoe mechanics. Use it for an aura that offers resistance vs that type of dmg.
Lay on Hands – Heals the target to full hp instantly. Used mostly on tanks, when you cannot cast holy light or when you are not going to heal them in time. But any target that would die without lay, is a good target to use it on.
Things to improve
- Make sure you never drop Beacon of Light & Sacred Shield from the tank.
- Keeping JoL up the whole fight on the main target and judge almost on CD.
- Use your healing CDs, when needed, no to push HPS. You never know when something bad will happen and you’re going to need them.
- Use your defensive & external CDs smartly, don’t waste them by using too many at the same time. With experience, you will know when a cooldown is needed for a certain mechanic and when not.
- Perfecting your mana management. If you are able to heal long fights, that can last even 15 min, such as LK HC (mostly because you have low dps), with 1 innervate or no innervate at all, then you know you have mastered your mana pool. You should not rely on the auto-attack strategy to make your mana back. Why? Because you should be casting almost the whole time, believe me, on fights that are heavy on tank dmg, your tank can die in less than 2 sec from full HP; I’m not exaggerating. While you are casting, you don’t auto-attack, so that’s why you shouldn’t rely on auto-attacks for mana, only if you’re below 10% mana and it’s the only way. No to mention that on some fights, it’s very bad to stay in melee range, because of a mechanic. BQL for example.
- Saving low HP people with your instant cast spells. A good example, is when someone is getting combat ressed and there is a constant aoe dmg taken on the whole raid, you need to heal the ressed person instantly, otherwise they will die.
- A good healer is the one that can keep his friends alive, not someone who plays for HPS meter. Focus on saving people and keeping them alive.
2. Talents & glyphs
2.1 – Talents
Spoiler:Show There are not many options to choose from, meaning that the talents that are not mandatory, should be taken into account, depending on the situation. In the image below, you can see what talents you should prioritize according to the colors, and in order to understand the talent's importance and in what situations they are useful, I will explain each one of them, so that you can make your own decision when considering a certain talent:
Green (Rank 1) – These are the mandatory talents, you should maximize all talents marked with this color, except “Toughness” from protection, put only 4/5 points in it.
Blue (Rank 2) – These are talents that you can spend your remaining points and are completely up to your choice/situation.
Yellow (Rank 3) – You should only consider spending points in these after you decided that you don’t need/want any blue talents, because they are not really that useful. The retribution ones are only for the crit build.
Red (Rank 4) – Garbage, should never considered.
Explanation
Spiritual Focus - good
70% less pushback, pretty good and there is no other choice for the first row.
Seals of the Pure - useless
Obviously a retri talent.
Healing Light - good
12% increased amount for your healing spells, essential talent.
Divine Intellect - good
Increases your total intellect by 10%, a must have talent since it gives % mana, 5 points its recommended, it synergies well with Holy Guidance talent and the more mana you have, the more you will gain from Divine Plea and Arcane Torrent or anything else that gives % mana. More mana = more healing.
Unyielding Faith - useless
Clearly a pvp talent, there is no encounter where this talent would be useful.
Aura Mastery - very good
Makes you immune to silence and interrupts, this part is mostly for pvp, but the most important part is that it doubles the effect of your current active aura (it still works even if you switch your aura during the Aura Mastery effect). Aura Mastery and DSAC are the only defensive CDs in the game that affects the whole raid, this is why this talent its mandatory and its one of the best talents you can choose.
Illumination - very good
Every time any of your healing spells crits, 30% of the mana base cost its refunded. This talent its absolutely mandatory with 5 points in it, so that you have 100% chance. At bis you should have around 50% crit chance with holy spells, so this means that you are getting a lot of mana back.
Improved Lay on Hands - situational
It reduces the cooldown of your lay on hands by 2min per point and grants the target you used it on, a buff that reduces the physical damage taken by 10% per point. This is useful in situations where your tank is under geared and for fights that are heavy on physical damage such as Halion and Lich King, it can be used as a CD for a nasty soul reaper or when you are moving a lot and can’t heal the tank. Overall it’s nice to have, but it’s not something I would rely on, since even with the 4 min reduction, that still leaves you with 11min CD, which is still too much, you won’t have it for every pull if you are wiping a lot and thus it’s an unreliable CD, so you should consider this talent only if your tank is under geared or in extremely difficult healing situations. Use 2 points from improved concentration aura if you want this talent.
Improved Concentration Aura - situational
It increases the efficiency of your concentration aura by 5% per point, so with 3 points in it, that would bring the conc. aura to 65% less casting lost. This is huge, since it affects your whole raid. By default, you should always have 3 points in this talent, only take 1-2 points out, if you want to take the improved lay on hands talent. I personally don’t think it’s worth taking points out of this, for anything else in the talent tree, unless you're making your talents for a specific fight, that doesn’t involve your RPDS and healers in taking too much periodic dmg, that would make them lose a lot of casting time, or if you are solo healing and u have little, to no RPDS at all. (for example if you are going for a solo heal bane with full melee comp., this talent it’s kinda useless, but I think its absolute mandatory for most 25man raid)
Improved Blessing of Wisdom - not worth
It increases the efficiency of your blessing of wisdom by 10/20 %, so would bring you to a total of 110 mana reg. per 5 sec from 92. This talent its simply not worth wasting points in it for the following 2 reasons:
1. If your healers are struggling with mana on a fight, whether you have 92 or 110 mana reg. per 5sec, there are high chances that the 18 additional mana reg. won’t make any difference, since the only ones actually benefiting from the mana reg. are the rshamans and the druids, and 18 is rly not that much.
2. If you rly want that extra mana reg., a shaman can always use the mana reg. totem, which is 109 mana reg. per 5sec. (considering you always have at least 1 shaman for 25man)
Blessed Hands - not worth
Reduces the mana cost by 15/30 % for freedom, sacrifice and salvation (kinda irrelevant), it increases the effectiveness of salvation by 50/100 % and the effectiveness of sacrifice by 5/10 %. You shouldn’t really need the increased effect for salvation, if your hunter & rouges are doing their MD & ToT properly and if your tank is decently geared, the basic salvation should be enough to reduce the threat for any dps for 99% of the situations. And the sacrifice part, that would bring it to 40% of the dmg taken by the tank, transferred to you, which can be a little bit too much if you don’t use a cd on yourself or if you suddenly need to move and can’t heal, also I don’t think it’s needed since there is a cap regarding the amount of the dmg that can be transferred, that cap is equal with your health. So, for example, if you have 30k health, you can’t transfer more dmg than that. With the 40%, the amount transferred will be the same, you will just hit the transfer cap sooner and it can be problematic to heal, because you might get 1 shot.
Pure of Heart - useless
Simply useless, nothing to say about it.
Divine Favor - good
Your next healing spell is a guaranteed crit. Honestly with 2min cd and only your next spell is a crit, this spell it’s pretty useless, I’ve been playing hpally on wotlk for 10 years and I don’t think I’ve used this spell more than 2-3 times. I don’t have it on my bars or keybinded for ages now and I’ve done pretty much every possible healing challenge without it. You can add it in macro if you want, for example you can make a macro with divine illumination and divine favor or with wings.
Sanctified Light - good
Basically, a flat 6% crit chance increase, pretty decent and it synergies well with Illumination talent.
Purifying Power - useless
It offers you reduced mana cost for cleanse, that is a very low mana cost anyway, and for consecration, which you don’t care about it cuz you don’t use it, and 17/33 % CDR for exorcism and holy wrath, which you don’t need.
Holy Power - good
5% crit chance increase for 5 points, pretty good since you want to get above 50% crit chance with holy spells.
Light’s Grace - very good
Gives your holy light a 100% chance to reduce your holy light cast by 0.5 sec for 15 sec. I don’t think I need to say much about this, simply one of the best talents you can take.
Holy Shock - very good
This is your instant healing spell and it has 6 seconds cd. You mostly use it to keep people alive after they almost died and they have like 2-3k health left.
Blessed Life - not worth
All attacks against you have 4/7/10 % chance to cause half damage. On paper this doesn’t sounds too bad, but it’s simply not worth wasting points in it while you have better options.
Sacred Cleansing - useless
Just a pvp talent, not sure if it’s even good in pvp, but in our case, it is completely useless.
Holy Guidance - good
Increases your spell power by 20% of your total intellect. Now, we don’t normally care about spell power, unless we are talking about large amounts and since we have quite a lot of intellect, this talent its actually pretty good.
Divine Illumination - very good
Reduces the mana cost of all spells by 50% for 15 sec + makes your healing spells stronger by 35% with 2 pieces from T10. This is literally the best healing CD you have, not only it increases your healing but also reduces your mana cost. You should look to use this first over wings and try to use it as often as possible to maximize the mana you have through the fight, but obviously, you should prioritize keeping it, if the chances are high that in the next few seconds, there will be a spike of damage and you're going to need a cd for it.
Judgements of the Pure - very good
It increases your haste by up to 15% for 1 min whenever you hit a target with judgement. This talent is super good, since it decreases even further your casting time for holy light.
Infusion of Light - very good
When your holy shock crits, it makes your next flash of light an instant cast or increases the crit chance of your next holy light by 20%. Also, if your healing someone who has sacred shield on them with flash of light, it will leave a hot on them for 12 sec. The hot part its very useful in a lot of situations, for example you can keep yourself alive on Valithria just by applying the hot on yourself or on Sindragosa, you can apply the hot on the people who will be frozen, so they don't die in tombs.
Enlightened Judgements - very good
It increases the range from which you can use judge by 30 yards, bringing it to 40 yards and also gives you a 4% hit chance increase for judge. This is a huge deal, since you cannot always stay close to your target to judge it, having those extra yards is very handy, so you don’t have to worry about the range. Also, the 4% hit chance is kinda nice, it helps you miss less often.
Beacon of Light - very good
This talent, is the reason I started playing as a holy paladin, years ago. In my opinion, this is the best healing spell in the game. It gives you the ability to heal 2 people, at the same time, for the same amount.
Divinity - very good
So basically, what this talent does, is that it increases all the healing that you do by 5% and all the healing that is done on you, by an additional 5%. If your tank is the only one who is tanking damage, you should beacon him and heal yourself, because by default, all the healing, regardless of their target, is increased by 5%, but if it’s done on you, you get an additional 5%. So you heal the tank more if you heal yourself, instead of any other target.
Divine Strength - useless
15% strength -> Obviously this talent was not made for holy.
Stoicism - decent
Reduces the duration of all stuns by 30%. Not amazing, not something very useful, there are some mobs here and there that might stun you occasionally and this talent comes useful, but this is mostly kinda useless for bosses. The only reason your picking this, is because the other choice is to increase your dodge by 3%.
Guardian’s Favor - good
Reduces the cooldown of your hand of protection by 2 min and increases the duration of your freedom by 4 sec. Not bad, it makes your HoP a 3min cd, which is pretty decent, and also makes your freedom to last 10 sec, which is pretty handy for Halion if you're healing inside.
Anticipation - useless
Increases your dodge chance by up to 5%, clearly a tank talent, sadly useless for us.
Divine Sacrifice - very good
30% of all the damage taken by party members is redirected to the paladin, lasts 10 sec. Its good in some situations, for example it helps you to keep the tank alive if he is taking too much dmg in a short amount of time (you have to be in the same party). You generally take this talent to enable the next talent and if your tank is pretty geared, you shouldn’t need this party part of dsac. Many paladins actually use a macro that cancels this part when they use dsac, cuz what you want is the 20% dmg reduction for the entire raid.
Improved Righteous Fury - bad
While your righteous fury is active, all the damage that you take is reduced by up to 6%. While this looks good on paper, it’s actually very bad, because if you have RF up, you will generate a lot of aggro, which isn't helpful at all for fights where adds spawn. You're almost guaranteed to aggro them with RF up, so if your tank is not fast enough to react or if he didn’t get proper md/tot, you might die because you have to many adds on you. Personally, I take aggro sometimes even without RF, so with RF up and if you are doing job correctly, you will be in a lot of troubles, for way too little. 6% dmg reduction is not that much, if you take into consideration all the damage you take through-out the fight, the spikes of huge damage are very rare, so it is not worth the trade. Not to mention, that if you aggro some adds, you might end up taking more damage than you otherwise would, if you didn't had RF up.
For some specific fights, it can be considered okay, if that fight doesn’t involve any adds, but since most people want an all-around build, I suggest sticking with Toughness, especially if you are a beginner, cuz you rly need to know what you’re doing if you want play with RF.
Toughness - decent
Increases your armor value by up to 10% and reduces the duration of all slowing effects by up to 30%. It’s not that useful, but considering the other option, Improved RF, I think Toughness is the better option. Spend only 4 points in this talent, as you want to have 5 more points for dsac and improved devo aura.
Divine Guardian - very good
While this is active, all the damage taken is reduced by 20% for the whole raid, lasts 6 sec. This and Aura Mastery are the only raid CDs in the game. Divine Guardian is the best, because it reduces the damage taken for all sources, not just one.
Improved Hammer of Justice - situational
Decreases your HoJ cd by up to 20 sec. The only time you should need this talent, is if your guild is assigning a paladin for each valkyr to stun it, on Lich King. That is only time when you would need this talent, because otherwise your stun won’t be available for each wave of valkyrs. Most guilds, nowadays, don’t use this strategy as it is usually necessary for low geared raids, but instead they use holy wrath to stun the valkyrs. For this, take 2 points out from Improved Devotion Aura.
Improved Devotion Aura - very good
Gives an additional 50% armor bonus for your devotion aura (we don’t rly care about this part) and increases the healing done on any target affected by your aura, with 6%. This is a flat 6% increase of your healing as long as the target you're healing, is affected by your active aura. Unless you're using Improved HoJ talent, having 3 points in this is mandatory.
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The following talents are specific for the crit build, which is good only for Valithria, in case you want 2x holy specs:
- Maximize: Benediction, Improved Judgements, Heart of the Crusader, Conviction
These are the talents for the crit build and they should not be used for a standard, all-around, build, as your missing out on a lot of important stuff.
2.2 – Talent builds
Spoiler:Show 1 – Standard, all-around, build (recommended)
This build is what I consider as the perfect build, since it covers almost all the situations. This is what I use in an end-game guild for farming LoD and RS 25hc, without worrying if I should swap any talent for a specific fight.
TIP: If you are a beginner and you find yourself using Lay way too often, you might want to consider taking 2 points from Imp Conc and use them on Imp lay. Once you mastered the class and you are playing on the high-end, you should no longer find yourself in need to use lay of hands that often anymore, thus, you can consider using these points in something else.
2 – The HoJ buildSpoiler:Show
If your guild uses the tactic that each Valkyr should be individually stunned by a paladin, with HoJ, then you’re probably going to need this build.
3 – Crit buildSpoiler:Show
This build is no longer used, at least in end-game guilds. The main reason is that you if you go for this build, you won’t have dsac, which is a great cd to have, and the only thing you get in return is 5% crit. Currently, the only fight that this build is good for, is Valithria. So, unless you’re playing your character with double holy spec, the crit build and the standard build, you should never consider the crit build. But if you go for this build, for whatever reason, replace Glyph of Seal of Wisdom with Glyph of Seal of Light, and use Seal of Light instead of wisdom, for 5% more healing, since you don’t need SoW on Valithria.
Spoiler:Show 2.3 – Glyphs
Spoiler:Show MajorsGlyph of Beacon of light – Gives you 30 sec more on beacon, from 1 min to 1min 30sec.
Glyph of Holy Light – This is your AOE healing, the best glyph for a hpally.
Glyph of Seal of Wisdom – Reduces the mana cost of your healing spells by 5%.
MinorsGlyph of Lay on Hands – Reduces the cooldown of your Lay on Hands by 5 min.
Glyph of Blessing of Might – Increases the duration of your BoM by 20 min (not GBOM)
Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom – Increases the duration of your BoW by 20 min (not GBOW)
Unfortunately, there are aren’t many useful minor glyphs. The only useful glyph is the lay on hands one, that one is mandatory on all specs.
3. Stats & gems, gear & enchants
3.1 – Stats & Gems
Spoiler:Show StatsIntellect
This is the best stat out of all. It gives you more mana, which means more healing through-out the fight. This is very valuable, especially for longs fights or when people underperform and you need to do more healing than usual to keep them alive. Also, because of the talent Holy Guidance, your spell power is increased by 20% of your total intellect, which is a big number, if you have a lot of intellect.
Haste Rating
This is the second most valuable stat. It reduces the cast time of your spells, in other words, you cast faster. Particularly, what you care about is reducing the cast time of your holy light, so you can cast more often, which means more healing overall and also decreases the chances of your tank to die. Having a decent amount of haste, comes in very handy for fights like LK or Halion, 25HC. There isn’t really a haste cap, you can gem as much haste as you want, but at the cost of intellect.
Crit Chance
Every healing spell that crits, does 50% more healing and also refunds 30% of its mana cost, because of the Illumination talent. You should aim to have your holy crit chance close to 50% or above, as you want most of your holy lights to crit, in order to keep the tank alive and also to get your mana back.
Spell Power
It increases the base amount of heal of your spells. In theory, this looks and sounds good, but in order to be worth taking it over other stats, it needs to be in huge quantities, which almost never happens. The based SP that you get from items, is enough, you should never gem or enchant, spell power.
The scaling with SP is different for every spell, by default, for FoL is +100% and for holy light is +166%, without any talent or anything else. This means, that 100 spell power will increase your holy light healing, by 166. In addition, most your holy lights will be an overheal anyway, so it’s really not worth to increase it any further, as long it comes at the expense of other stats. But if you are fine playing with lower haste/intellect, you can go for more SP. (not recommended)
Mana regen
Commonly known as MP5. This is the worst stat when compared to others. Its kinda the same story as spell power, unless you can get a huge amount of it, without sacrificing other good stats, is not worth. You have plenty of other ways to regain your mana, you should not rely on MP5 to regain your mana. Do not socket any MP5 gems/enchants, also you shouldn’t have any items that have mana regen, besides the ICC rep ring.
The priority of stats looks like this:
Intellect > Haste > Crit > Spell Power
Spoiler:Show ExplanationThis priority applies for general use, but it is not really set in stone. In fact, I would say that the stat priority depends on your performance or playstyle. For example, if you struggle with mana, you might want to consider swapping a few haste gems for Intellect gems. But if you don’t struggle with mana, maybe you want to consider adding one or two haste gems instead of Intellect. The thing is, you can never really reach a point where you have enough Intel or haste and adding more would be pointless, as no healer would say no to having more mana and even with bis gear and full haste gems, your holy light still wouldn’t be a 1 second cast or lower. Crit is also very important, firstly, every time you crit, 30% of the mana cost of that spell is refunded because of Illumination talent, secondly, you want to be close or above 50% crit with holy spells, because you want most of your holy lights to be crits, the reason being is that in some situations, your tank will take a lot of damage in a short amount of time (LK and Halion), and you want to be able to fill up your tank before the next big hit, otherwise your tank might die. You could find yourself pretty often in situations where your holy light didn’t crit 2-3 times in a row and your tank died because of that, so having a decent amount of crit, would make those situations very unlikely to happen. Sometimes you could even consider crit above haste, if you know what you’re doing.
For example, if you have a lot of experience as a healer and as a hpally and you’re in the process of gearing up, this is the time when you might want to consider going for some crit first, because as an experienced healer, you should know all the mechanics and fights; when you’re going to take damage, what type of damage, how much damage; in such a manner, that you should pre-heal every time, especially the important mechanics that can wipe your raid very quickly, such as infest on LK. So, if you’re pre-healing most of the important mechanics, haste isn’t that important as timing your holy light with the mechanic, so in that situation, is more important that your holy light crits, than casting faster.
So when it comes to gearing up, look for items that have Intellect & stamina as main stats, and haste, crit, spell power for secondary stats, because this is the bis combination. (haste > crit > SP generally, but up to your playstyle, because as long as you keep your raid alive, it doesn’t really matter how you do it)
My Stats Chart:
The values for the holy light cast are calculated with Grace and Pure buffs, since you should always have them up.
Stat Personal Minimum
RecommendedMana 37000 35000 Intellect 2182 2000 Haste 1300 1200 Crit (Holy) 45.28% 45% Spell Power
(Bonus Healing)3182 3100 Hit Rating 0 0 Holy Light Cast
(Grace & Pure)1.25 sec Between
1.2 - 1.3 sec
Gems
Insightful Earthsiege Diamond – As meta, for even more mana.
Nightmare Tear – We need this in order to activate the meta, since we use full yellow gems. Put it on the head slot, for max bonus SP.
Brilliant King’s Amber & Quick King’s Amber – For the rest of the sockets.
Besides the Nightmare Tear and the meta, you can gem full Brilliant King’s Amber or Quick King’s Amber, for the rest of the sockets, although a combination of both would be better. My recommendation, is to try to find a balance between haste and intellect. Like I mentioned earlier, if you struggle with mana, go for more intel gems, if you don’t struggle with mana, go for haste gems (even in very non-optimal raid setups, like no druids for innervate or retri for replenishment or very long fights). Also, I recommend that at bis, you should have at least 1200 haste, unbuffed.
3.2 – Gear & Enchants
Spoiler:Show Bis list:
Slot Item Enchant Head Neck - Shoulder Back Chest Wrist Hands Belt Legs Feet Ring 1 - Ring 2 - Trinket 1 - Trinket 2 - Relic - Off Hand Main Hand
Notes:
1. If you are playing with an off-spec, like retri for example, and you want to use the ring rep. Ashen Band for it, replace Wisdom with Cerise Coiled Ring.
2. http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/item=38918 or http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/item=44467 I was asked this question a lot of times and that’s why I decided to add it to the guide. So to put it short, the intellect enchant is simply the best option in almost all cases. Like I mentioned earlier, spell power isn’t that useful for a holy paladin, unless we are talking about big numbers and 63 SP is really not much. The intellect enchant gives you more mana, which means more healing, and not to mention that you actually get some SP too, because of the Holy Guidance talent. The SP enchant can be slightly justified if you have Val’anyr, because it will increase your shields, but even then, I still don’t think its worth.
But at the end of the day, play with whatever enchant you want, I’ve seen some players getting way too triggered over this debate. Having the SP or the intel enchant, it won’t have any significant impact, it won’t make you a better healer having one over the other, it’s just a 0.something difference between them.
3. Why are the Corrupted legs better than Plague Many people believe that the hit rating from the Plaguebringer's Pants is mandatory or let's say useful, that it helps your Judge to miss less often. Not true. Even with that 104 hit rating that you get, your judgement is still gonna miss almost as often as without it. While I was in the process of gearing my 3rd hpally, at some point I had 3 items with hit rating on me, because beggars can't be choosers, and I was still missing with judgement, almost just as much as without all that hit rating. So in other words, it's simply not worth losing 93 crit for 104 hit rating. But also, some may argue that the Plaguebringer's Pants give more intel, sp and haste than Corrupted Legs. Which is true, but you need to ask yourself, how much more and is that crit difference worth it? The Plaguebringers give +17 haste, +16 intel & +23 SP, while the Corrupted Legs give +93 crit. Basically, without taking the +23 SP into consideration, because SP is not worth that much, the Plaguebringers offer nearly 2 sockets worth of stats, while the Corrupted Legs offer almost 4.5 sockets worth of stats. So there you go, Corrupted legs are way better in my opinion. Probably another reason why most people say that Plague are better, is because many players underestimate the need of crit on a holy paladin. In addition, Rippling and Puresteel are just as good as Corrupted Legs. The only reason why I mentioned the Corrupted legs as bis, is because it's easier to obtain them and they don't cost anything.
4. Is Val’anyr really worth over Bloodsurge To answer that question, you must first understand the value of each item. So, both of them have the bis stats for a hpally, the difference is that Bloodsurge has higher stats than Val’anyr and a socket (DIFF: 24-intel, 5-crit, 22-haste, 272-SP, 1-socket). So then the question is, is the proc of Val’anyr worth sacrificing these stats? It depends, but for the the majority of the cases, having Val’anyr instead of Bloodsurge, is not going to make any significant difference, in actually saving peoples lives.
“But wait, Shater, what makes you say that? Don’t you see that my HPS is better after I’ve switched to Val’anyr?”. HPS is a big miss conception that people have when it comes to evaluating someone as a healer. What is your job as a healer? Keeping people alive, that’s your f*cking job. It doesn’t matter how you do it and it doesn’t matter with how much HPS you do it. It’s not something you can really quantify.
So yes, although Val’anyr will give you better numbers on the meters, the proc’s actual usefulness is not that good as people think. Its usefulness depends on the case, for example, let’s take a 25-man standard comp, with 4 healers. Not only in a usual comp, you will find a disci priest in 99.9% of the cases, but you also have 2 others healers with you. Now the proc itself, gives the target that you healed with holy light, roughly a 3-4k absorb shield and a very small amount to the targets healed from glyph of holy light, around 300-400 absorb (the numbers depends on the raid buffs, icc buff, cd usage, etc.). These numbers are not really that high, in fact, the absorbs coming from the glyph, are pretty irrelevant, since in a 4-healer setup, someone else would have healed that small amount anyway. The target’s absorb, is not that high either, I mean, there are a couple of cases when that 3-4k absorb could save a tank’s life, but these are 1 to 1000 probability. So my point is, that in a normal setup, the amount of damage that the proc prevents via absorb, is not that much in a short amount of time like the shield from a disci priest in order to be really worth it, because all that damage would have been probably healed anyway by you or the other healers in that short amount of time.
But in other cases, having Val’anyr, could help you quite a bit. If you’re going with an unusual comp, with let’s say, 2 healers at most, that proc comes in pretty handy, because that small amount of damage prevented by the proc, that I was talking about earlier, well since there is only two of you now, it won’t get healed that fast and easy, because there are fewer healers to cover up that damage.
So, the logic is as follows: The more targets you need to heal, and the fewer healers you have, the value of having Val’anyr increases.
In conclusion, the choice depends of what type of content you want to do and how you actually want to obtain Val’anyr. Because if you are going to play only in standard comps and you are not going to push some healing challenge agenda, maybe grinding out Val’anyr is not really that worth for you. Especially if you want to buy it with your IRL money, then I would strongly advise you to think twice and to consider everything I said above, cuz from my point of view, price per what you actually get, is really not worth, unless you are rich and you don’t care about money xD.
If you don’t have Val’anyr, you don’t need to be worried that you won’t be able to do some crazy challenges or you won’t be able to compete with other healers. If you master your class, you can out-perform the majority of players that you will encounter. To further proof that Val’anyr is not that big of a deal after all and you shouldn’t be worried if you don’t have it, if you check my YouTube channel, you will find that all the challenges that I’ve done, I’ve achieved them without Val’anyr.
I’m not here to tell if you should buy or not Val’anyr, or grinding it, I’m here to explain to you what is the difference between having it or not. At the end of the day, you make your own choice, we all have our own reason(s) to why we play the game, so if you want to whore the HPS meters, go for it.
For a LK 25HC fight, Val’anyr should give you between 700k-1M absorbs.
3.3 – Consumables
Spoiler:Show Flask
The best choice is to use double elixirs: Elixir of Lightning & Elixir of Mighty, the second-best choice is to use Flask of Distilled Wisdom. Using 2x elixir is the best, because it gives you a total of +90 to two beneficial stats compared to Distilled Wisdom, which gives you only +65 intel. Flask of the Frost Wyrm is not that useful, its only good for Valithria if you want to go full power, otherwise I would personally never use it, even if don’t have a flask/elixir at all.
Food
Imperial Manta Steak or Very Burnt Worg – they both give +40 haste and +40 stam, the only difference is that manta steak also regens mana while you eat it. That part is pretty irrelevant so, just get the one that is cheaper to obtain.
Potion
Runic Mana Injector, or if you don’t have engineering, use Runic Mana Potion. Make sure you are always prepared, you should have 1 stack, at least, whenever you’re going to raid, because you never know when you’re going to need them. Personally, I very rarely end up using them in a standard comp, LoD/RS 25HC end-game guild clear. Generally, I only end up using them on long fights.
If you don’t need extra mana, you can use Potion of Speed as a small healing cd. You can also use it as pre-pot if you really need it. Another alternative is Swiftness Potion, if you need to move out fast due to a certain mechanic, but you shouldn’t really need this, especially if you have Nitro Boots.
4. Professions
Spoiler:Show
Rank Profession Benefits Reason 1 Hyperspeed is a very good small healing cd and the utility that
the nitro boots provide, outmatches any other profession. 2 +42 to any stat (List Here) Gives you the highest amount of additional stats. 3 It gives you 2 additional sockets, so basically +40 to any stat. 4 Your Distilled Wisdom flask and your elixirs, give an additional
+20 in that stat and also, they last 2 hours instead of one.
The other professions, that where not mentioned, they simply give you additional spell power, which is not a priority for a hpally.
5. Races
Spoiler:Show Ranking:
1. Blood elves – Arcane Torrent, restores 6% of your mana every 2 min.
2. Draenei – Gift, gives 1% hit chance to the whole raid. Gift of the Naaru is pretty useless.
3. Human – EMFH, the ability to remove CC and some spirit.
4. Dwarfs – Stoneform, completely useless for holy, but good for off-spec tank.
Blood elves are simply the best, their racial their racial gives you 6% of your mana back every 2 min.
Unfortunately, the alliance races are pretty much useless, the human racial can be useful for some fights, for example on BQL you can remove the fear, although, it should not be needed at all, since the priests should fear ward themselves and mass dispel every time.
In other words, if you are playing alliance, just the pick the race that you like the most, all of their racials are not that impactful for a holy paladin.
6.Addons & Macros
6.1 – Addons
Spoiler:Show
- DBM – Obviously you need a boss-mechanic addon. I recommend DBM since BigWigs isn’t really that good for WOTLK.
- Healbot/Grid2/VuhDo/Elvui – Having a raid frames addon is mandatory if you care about your performance. The default raid frames from blizzard are simply not good enough, not only they are not esthetically pleasant, but they don’t provide you with enough information. If you get any of the addons mentioned above, you can customize them as you want, so you can see the information that you need and in the manner that you want. Also, healing mostly from your mouse, instead of mouseover macros or even worse, clicking the target and then healing, will boost your reflexes tremendously and your performance. VuhDo & Elvui are really good, they are the most advanced raid frames, but it’s really time consuming to properly set them up and they can be a bit tricky too. I personally use Healbot, its really easy to set it up and customize it.
- Weakauras – This is the best addon ever created. There are almost no limits to what you can do with it, if you know lua codding. Is very useful for tracking buffs & debuffs and many other things. You can always find the latest backported version of the addon here: download link. Also I’ve created a guide for this addon, Video Guide
- Details – Simply the best meter addon out there. I blessed the day I’ve found that it was backported to WOTLK. The name speaks for itself, it gives the most detailed information out there possible, although, it consumes a lot of resources. If you are playing on an older PC, you might want to stay on Skada. Download Link
- Quartz – It gives you the ability to customize your casting bars and also, it shows latency. This addon is recommended for healers and casters in general.
- OmniCC – It displays the cd numbers over weakauras and action bar spells.
- Elvui – This addon is an entire UI. You can customize almost everything and adds entire new skins to your interface. It’s the most used addon, that changes your UI completely. The latest back-ported version can be found here: Download Link. This is not mandatory by any means.
6.2 – MacrosSpoiler:Show
DSAC macro – This cancels Divine Sacrifice buff (the ones that redirects dmg. from your party members to you) and leaves only Divine Guardian, which reduces 20% dmg for all raid members:
#showtooltip Divine Sacrifice
/cast Divine Sacrifice
/in 0.2 /script CancelUnitBuff("player","Divine Sacrifice")
All Healing CDs – This will pop all your healing cds + GTS + eng. Hands. Good for Valithria:
#showtooltip Avenging Wrath
/cast Avenging Wrath
/cast Divine Illumination
/use 10
/use Glowing Twilight Scale
HoP mouseover – A macro to cast HoP on your mouseover target. You can use it for other spells as well:
#showtooltip Hand of Protection
/use [@mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][@player] Hand of Protection
Divine Plea – Pressed once, it will cast Divine Plea, If you press it a second time, it will cancel the buff:
#showtooltip Divine Plea
/cancelaura Divine Plea
/use Divine Plea
Camera – This macro will enable you to zoom out as much as possible:
/console cameraDistanceMax 50
Recount bug – If your meter bugs out and doesn’t register anything, use this macro to fix it:
/run local f = CreateFrame("frame",nil, UIParent); f:SetScript("OnUpdate", CombatLogClearEntries);
7. FAQ
Spoiler:Show Q: If I top the HPS meters, it means that I am a good healer, right?
The answer to that question is pretty complex, but to keep it short, NO, it doesn't necessarily mean you are a good healer. Your job as a healer is to keep people alive, it doesn’t matter how you do it or with how much HPS you do it. For example, let’s say that in a raid you are below another healer on the meter, but you can solo heal a specific challenge, while he can’t. In my opinion, you are a better healer than him. (considering fair conditions for both and if their play diff. classes, also it needs to be doable by both) A healer that keeps the raid alive and prevents a wipe, when an average healer couldn't, is a good healer.
Q: Why you shouldn’t rely entirely on auto-attacks to manage your mana?
While you are casting, you don’t auto-attack and you should be casting almost the entire fight, because your tank can literally die in less than 2 sec if he doesn’t receive any healing, especially in fights like Halion and LK. Also, in some fights like BQL, standing in melee range is not a good idea.
Q: Is the AoE healing of a hpally even relevant?
Yes, it is. By default, just with the glyph, is not a crazy amount in short-term, but long-term and especially on fights where the predominant type of damage is aoe, it will do a crazy amount until the end of the fight. Not to mention that even in short-terms, if you use a healing cd, your aoe becomes very potent. For example, if you use Divine Illumination, you should be able to solo heal an infest on 25man.
Notes
!! The purpose of this guide is to help the community. These where my ideas and opinions on how to play a holy paladin. Should you have any questions or feedback, you can leave them on the comments below and I will do my best to answer them.
If you happened to find this guide useful, feel free to check out my other guides as well. Or if you want to be always up to date with my latest findings, visit me on my other social platforms:
Weakauras Guide – A guide for the best addon in the game.
Armory Link – My main's armory.
YouTube – Healing challenges and video kills.
Twitch – Sometimes I stream too.