by SnowflakeSo you’re a new level 80 paladin that decided to go holy(if you’re not 80 yet try these guides, they are really good). Yes, a good choice. This guide will cover the basics and some of the more advanced things about holy paladins. Enjoy your reading!
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Holy Light focus
- How to heal like a holy paladin
- Useful macros
- Addons
- Summary
1. Introduction
First of all, as a holy paladin, what can i give to a group/raid? Answer: Powerful tank-heals / single-target heals. The holy paladin surpasses ANY class on that point PERIOD. The healing spells that we use for this are as follows:
A spell that is slow, powerful and uses a lot of mana.
(I’ll tell you more in the Holy light build section.)
The quick, weak and mana efficient spell.
An instant cast healing spell that is slightly more powerful and uses more mana than Flash of Light. 6 seconds cooldown.
A VERY powerful heal that heals for your entire health pool. Has got a 20 minute cooldown (without glyph/talents) which makes it a panic button for those OH MY GOD THE TANK’S GONNA DIE AND I WILL WIPE THE RAID moments.
Other spells that are available to holy paladins:
1. Avenging Wrath
A spell that increases healing and damage done by 20% for 20 seconds.
Try to keep this up on the tank. Improved by this talent in the protection tree
This is our tool that makes us capable of healing more than one target at the time. Learned in the last tier of the holy tree. Keep this up on the tank and you can heal the rest of the group/raid.
Speaks for itself.
Excellent spell to use during times during an encounter when the raid doesn’t take much damage. Really good for Holy Light focus holy paladins.
With that said, there are two types of holy paladins, the ones who focus on using Holy Light a lot, and the ones who focus on using flash of light. I’ll only go through Holy light build, because flash of light build is mostly for PVP and i don’t know that much about PVP or flash of light holy paladins.
2. Holy light focus
This is the build that most holy paladins use. That is because of the sustained HPS (healing per second)and that it is easy and simple. I strongly recommend this for new holy paladins. You need really good gear to be an effective Flash of light healer, but the holy light build works with not so good gear and it’s easier.
This build focuses on using Holy Light a lot, and thus you need the mana pool to support that. You should use gear with a lot of intellect and gem for intellect. The stat priority when you choose gear is: Intellect>haste>mp5>crit and spellpower (but still, all holy paladin gear has some spellpower.).
Why intellect?
The answer is very simple.Because holy paladins can get a massive manapool and throw out quick Holy Lights most of the time in an encounter. This talent will reduce the cast time as well as this one. You will get a very short cast time on your holy light with only a little haste.
Let’s take a look on what intellect will give you:
Bigger mana pool (duh..).
Crit chance.
More regain from Divine Plea
More regain from Replenishment
More spellpower through this talent
AND it scales with both divine intellect and blessing of kings.
Other stats
Then there is haste. This is the stat you use if you feel you’re not able to throw out enough heals to keep the tank alive. Much better than spellpower. Simple use, makes you able to throw out more holy light in a fixed period of time.
Mp5 is much better than spirit for holy paladins. It gives you mana back over time.
Crit is good for illumination procs. But it doesn’t give back that much mana since it was nerfed. The bigger heals from crit is mostly overhealing, it’s very situational.
Talents
The talent build that you want for this build is either a holy spec with retribution offspec or a holy spec with a protection offspec.
Some people want to include aura mastery and sacrifice one point in either improved lay on hands or improved blessing of wisdom. This spec is good for both instances and raids.
This spec is optimized for raids so i included aura mastery. (a great spell for resistance auras). Focuses on survivability instead of crit. Also gets this and this
Now what really separates the Holy Light build from the Flash of Light one is glyphs, gems, enchants, librams, and trinkets. You can see the glyphs in the talent links so first up is… gems!!
Gems
You will want to gem with these 
for most of your sockets. For meta this 
is the gem you want to be using. And finally one of these to activate your meta gem. You want to put that gem in a socket that has a good socket bonus. And by the way, don’t forget an eternal belt bucket on your waist.
That’s about it for the gems part. Next up is… Librams!!
Librams
As this is written (patch 3.3.5) The best libram for holy light focus paladins is STILL this one. This will simply make you able to spam more holy lights during one fight.This one is also very easy to get, it costs only 15 emblems of heroism.
Now, Let’s take a look at the other options. We have this libram. that is bought for emblems of conquest. This is no better than Libram of Renewal since spellpower doesn’t matter that much for a holy paladin. If you want spellpower at all you don’t want it with Holy Light, you would want it for Flash of Light and Holy Shock. Don’t get this.
Then there is the emblem of triumph libram. This one. It is good for some situations and maybe a little for doing heroic dungeons. If you have triumphs that you don’t need for other gear, you can get this one.
Then there is the emblem of frost libram…*sighs* this one must be some cruel joke from blizzard. If you read this Blizzard, IT’S NOT FUNNY!! OK so the point is, This SUCKS, don’t waste your emblems of frost on this one! It’s almost not worth linking it but here it is. By the way if you wonder this is not a good libram for any holy paladin, not even Flash of light ones. (Yes i know how it is being on a GearScore demanding server and having an item level 200 libram. They won’t believe that it is the best libram for Holy Light focus holy paladins. Then they invite the other guy with the emblem of frost libram, because he’s got a better GearScore than me. Just /facepalm and go away.)
So Blizzard still hasn’t got a replacement, whatever. Now we’re going to talk about… TRINKETS!!’
Trinkets
So with trinkets we still want a lot of intellect so these two are great and pretty easy to obtain. The first one is bought for 50 emblems of triumph and the second one drops from the last boss in trial of the champion normal. They are just as good, the proc from the second trinket makes up for lesser int. Very nice trinkets. These are both obtainable without raiding.
Some good trinkets for holy paladins from raids are:
solace of the fallen. The heroic version is actually Best in slot for holy paladins i think. Gives back a lot of mana when you have stacked the proc. Is kind of like an extra blessing of wisdom. Drops from ToC 25
meteorite crystal. This trinket is simply AMAZING. Drops from algalon in ulduar. It gives alot of intellect as well as mp5 proc. Very hard to get your hands on these days. not many people do ulduar all the way to algalon. This is also Best in Slot.
pandora’s plea. It gives a lot of intellect, which is good, and the proc gives a lot of spellpower which can be useful. Also drops from ulduar. From mimiron i think.
Althor’s abacus Might not look that good due to lack of intellect. BUT, the proc is very nice. It will proc of almost everything, including judgement of light heals (if you have ever raided 25 mans you know how it can look on your screen with all of the judgement of light heals going off :D). The internal cooldown is about 45 seconds i think. Drops from gunship armory in 25 man ICC.
sliver of pure ice
This trinket is better the longer the fight takes. A fight that would take only 2 minutes will let you use this 1-2 times. That is about 3200 mana. BUT, if the fight takes say 6 minutes and a little more, then you could use this 4 times. About 6000 mana. That’s pretty nice. Drops from Lord Marrowgar in ICC 10man
Lastly, Enchants!
Enchants
The enchants for Holy Light paladins are very similar to that of Flash of Light holy paladins. There are only a couple of enchants that differs.
Head-Arcanum of blissful mending wyrmrest accord reputation reward.
Shoulder-Greater inscription of the crag Sons of hodir reputation reward. Check out this excellent guide for sons of hodir reputation
Legs-sapphire spellthread made by tailors.
bracers-exceptional intellect
is the best enchant.
Cloak-This is the only good enchant.
Chest-Powerful stats
Weapon-Major intellect Hard to get your hands on because most enchanters don’t have it. If you are an enchanter kill these to get it. If you can’t get intellect enchant then go for this enchant.
Shield-Greater intellect
gloves-Exceptional spellpower
I don’t think i have missed something so it’s time for the next section.
How to heal like a holy paladin?
Now I’ve been talking about this and that and all kind of things. But one of the most important questions remain. How do we heal?
First of all, we haven’t got a lot of spells for healing. Just Flash of light, Holy light and holy shock. But here’s how you want to start the fight. Start with a sacred shield and beacon of light on the tank. This way you don’t have to heal the tank but you can instead heal the rest of the group/raid. During periods with little healing that needs to be done(i.e. trash mobs) just put sacred shield on the tank and heal with flash of lights and sometimes when needed holy lights. For periods with a lot of damage just beacon the tank and spam holy lights on your group/raid. Also you can pop divine illumination. Don’t worry about overhealing unless you’re running out of mana. Holy paladins tend to overheal a lot. Try to keep lights grace up and don’t forget to use judgement of light for haste and also to heal. This might sound simple but it can be pretty hard to master.
Always keep in your mind how much mana you’ve got left and how much healing will be needed and you should be just fine. Healing is all about knowing the fight and how to heal accordingly.
There are also healing priorities. In Dungeons the priority is Tank—>you—>dps.
In raids this changes because there are off tanks in raids. The priority changes to: You—>tank—>other healers—>dps.
This varies a lot depending on your situation but mostly, this is the healing priority. (Priorities apply when for example both tank and dps are dying unless you heal them, then you should heal the tank first, but if ons dps is almost dead and tank has half his hp left, heal dps first)
Useful macros
#showtooltip Judgement of Light
/assist
/cast Judgement of LIght
/targetlasttarget
If you are targeting the tank or dps for example, this will target their target (the enemy hopefully) and cast judgement of light so you don’t have to manually target the enemy.
#showtooltip Holy Shock
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use Divine Favor
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/cast Holy Shock
A little bit long I know. This macro casts first divine favor and then holy shock guaranteeing a crit. If specced into holy will also give a instant flash of light or a holy light with 20% extra crit chance.
Addons
In this list i will show you all of the important addons that you can use.
Healbot, this is a great addon for all healers. Not entirely necessary for 5 man dungeons but really useful in raids. This allows you to have bars for everyone in you raid. Also can bind mouse buttons for healing spells. Just mouse over the person you want to heal and click. Very nice. I use this by the way.
Grid. This replaces the default raid frame with a much simpler one. Also very nice for raiding, and not just for healers.
Clique you can use this to bind mouse buttons to heals, like healbot. clique+grid or any other raid frame is like a healbot alternative that is much more customizable. Harder to setup than healbot.
Recount/skada These are two versions of the same thing. Damage and healing meters. Not necessary but nice to have to see how much dps your group is doing or how much healing you have done.
Deadly boss mods. This is a must have for any raider. Shows you what the boss is doing and cooldowns for the bosses next abilities. Very useful. Recommended for all classes/specs.
Pallypower. Pallypower is an excellent addon for paladins. Shows you what paladin buffs are currently on the target in a much simpler way than default. Makes buffing SO much easier, especially with more than one paladin in the group.
That’s all i know for addons. If you know any more, please tell me.
Summary
Holy paladins may seem simple but can be pretty fun to play. And the most important thing i have yet to mention is that you must have fun while playing it, otherwise switch spec. Oh yeah, by the way have fun playing on your holy paladin!
One last thing, Holy paladins are too much single target healers according to many, blizzard says this will change in cataclysm. Let’s hope that’s true.
Final words
Thank you all for reading my guide. I hope it will be of much use to you. If you feel like it, please, leave a comment.
Thank you,
Ranran90
outdatedI’ve quit wow before 4.0.1 came so this guide is SERIOUSLY outdated, just so you know.
ranran90
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oh, k now i get it thanksoh, k now i get it thanks 😛
thank you!Hello there Nilz!
First of all thanks for the feedback. About the protection offspec, I think you misunderstood what i meant. what I really meant was that you wont spend all of you’re points in holy. You will have to put some in the other 2 trees too. I don’t mean your offspec should be something else. I meant which tree to put points in after you’ve gotten what you need in holy :).
Cheers!
Very nice and veryVery nice and very thourough, i’ve been pvp healing in 2’s and 3’s recently and jsut started getting pve stuff so this should help me a lot, just one improvements formatting wise; you can change your gem pics to wowhead tooltips by putting in the links (read jame’s guide on guide writing) however i just have a question on why you say that we should have a tank or heal offspec because as a pvp healer i am oing to go Heal/Heal because i hate pally dps and i dont feel like getting any more gear.
okI’ve just come back from a rather long vacation, so i have not added these small things. I know I missed alot of small things. I wanted to finish the guide before i went on vacation.
thank you for the info, I’ll be sure to add it!
Hehe, I have to remindHehe, I have to remind myself too that I’m in 10 man normal mode mindset. My guild is small and casual, so we are still working on Lich King 10. We don’t even run 25s as a guild. So my frame of reference is completely different 😀
Yeah, it’s not a set you goYeah, it’s not a set you go out of your way to pick up as you’re gearing up, particularly the 251 pieces. I mostly did mean the 264 versions, hence why I said if you get lucky with token drops.
It really is highly situational, which is why it’s generally considered so bad. The main issue is that there’s no fight in ICC like Grobbulus where you constantly have to keep moving, and that’s the only sort of fight where that’d be useful (not that he did enough damage to really justify it either anyhow).
At the very least though, having more pieces helps when you invariably have gear replacements and would otherwise have to risk breaking your 2-piece bonus.
I had that happen for me, where I only had my gloves and helm for my two piece as I often passed on the token drop for guildmates, and wasn’t able to break it for almost a month after picking up ilv 277 gloves simply because there were no token drops for me to pick up the shoulders. 🙁
So yeah, it’s always good to roll on those tokens, even if you don’t have offspec or have already built the set for those.
Also, one thing to keep in mind that the chest/head/shoulders, the only pieces you can’t get from VoA, happen to be the pieces that have haste on them. Even if you did win the pieces from VoA, you’ll want to replace them as soon as possible, and that means going for at least two of the other pieces, which may lead to you having the 4-pc just by circumstance.
From what I understand fromFrom what I understand from theory crafting sites, the 4 piece tier 10 does little if anything. The gear itself is “eh okay” – but tbh there is no reason whatsoever to pick a 251 piece with sub-optimal itemization over a perfectly itemized 264 piece for the same badge price. And that’s exactly whet you’d have to do to get the 4-piece, unless you won them through VoA.
Just my opinion, though, and admittedly it was a while ago that I read the theorycrafting behind it so things could have changed.
PS: I realized that my first comment came off as a little pushy, it was not intended as such! I love holy pallies so I get a bit excited when talking about them, and I think that comes through wrong when I type it out >_< Anyways, no disrespect was intended - the guide you've created here is very nice 🙂
Made an account just toMade an account just to comment. 😛
Regarding your Ret-based build, as someone who used to have that for the longest time before switching to Prot-based: I’d much rather have 15% movement speed (Pursuit of Justice) to 2% crit. Given that our only instant cast spell is Holy Shock, the less time spent moving, the better.
This is why Tuskarr’s Vitality is the best feet enchant for the Prot-based spec, while Icewalker (yes, the hit sucks, you get it for the crit) or Nitro Boosts (if you’re an engineer) for the Ret-based spec. Mentioning this because you forgot to mention foot enchants in your enchant section.
Also, personally, I’d still want to get Aura Mastery as ret-based. It’s just a very solid 1 point talent, period.
You didn’t really talk about gear much, and it’s good to point out to new paladins that mail (and leather and cloth sometimes if it doesn’t have spirit) gear often have better itemization than plate, and that they shouldn’t be afraid to roll on it. As a matter of politeness, I usually don’t roll if there’s other classes that can use it much more than me, but a lot of our best -is- mail gear right now.
You might also want to add the Divine Sacrifice macros, both the bubble sac version (/castsequence shield+sacrifice), or the /cancelaura version (you don’t bother taking 30% of the raid damage, you’re only concerned with the 20% reduced dmg raidwall).
I tend to prefer the bubble sac version, but if I happen to have bubble on cooldown, at least I can offer a raidwall (Divine Shield has a 5min cd, while Divine Sacrifice only has 2min, so you can potentially offer two raidwalls in a boss fight), so it’s good to have both.
For Grid, I would also recommend two other addons that go with Grid:
http://www.wowace.com/addons/grid-mana-bars/ (Shows mana bars, or rage/rp/energy for other classes)
http://www.wowace.com/addons/grid-status-raid-debuff/ (Shows debuffs from raid bosses. Extremely useful)
Finally, on glyphs, while I do prefer the Beacon of Light one, I’ve also found Glyph of Divinity to be extremely useful. Rather than having LoH as purely a health OHSHIT button, you also turn it into a fairly useful mana button. Best used on yourself, but even as an ohshit button on the tank, it allows you to get some mana back for casting it.
BoL glyph gives better throughput once you know an encounter, but Divinity is better on learning encounters, since you can heal up a battle rezzed healer and give him mana, helps you manage your mana as you’re learning the encounter, etc.
So I think it’s worth offering that as an alternative.
You might also want to mention food and flasks.
Flask of Distilled Wisdom (+65 Int) from vanilla is still solid, if horribly expensive so I never get it. Flask of Pure Mojo (mp5 flask) is generally cheaper to buy. Food, there’s fish feasts (duh), imperial manta steak/very burnt worg (haste), or spicy fried herring/mighty rhino dogs (mp5).
I also wouldn’t call the 4-pc set bonus of t10 to be horrible/useless like Jiyambi says. Highly situational and generally not worth it, yes, but useless? no. But if you’re finding it easier to get the tokens than gear drops (perhaps your guild is helping you gear up, or you’re just hugely lucky with rolls), seriously, why not? It’s not a big deal to break it later on.
As for Righteous Fury, I’ve never found it to give me issues with snap aggro. I have seen pallies get the first bite on Blood Queen, so there it can be a concern, but I’ve never had problems elsewhere.
thanksThanks for the comment.
I’ll be sure to fix the errors when I get the time to do so. Holy pally tier gear has been a dissapointment so far, but you’re right, the tier 10 2 piece is good. I think I’ll just add a tier gear section.
The triumph libram is indeed good for valrithia (however it’s spelled)rescue. I mentioned that it was good for some situations but i’ll make that clear.
Yes, I know spirit is COMPLETELY USELESS. should have made it more clear. Again, thanks!
Edit: can’t find the hide key for attachments…
Hey, just wanted to drop byHey, just wanted to drop by and check the Holy Pally guide out. I play a holy pally as my main now, so speaking from experience I’d say this guide is accurate and fairly complete. The asthetics aren’t my favorite but it’s easy to read, so I can’t really complain.
A few minor details. You mention mp5 is much better than spirit, but it’s much more accurate to say that spirit is COMPLETELY and UTTERLY USELESS. Seriously, it does nothing for holy pallies, make sure that’s clear to newbies 🙂
Take a look at the addon Vuhdo, it’s a common replacement for Healbot. Just something you might want to add.
For your gear suggestions – it might be worth noting that the Triumph Emblem libram is good for the Valrithia fight. This is because you don’t need mana regen whatsoever on that fight, so even though we don’t get as much from spellpower normally, overhealing is not an issue on Valithria and therefor it’s actually an excellent libram in that very specific situation 🙂
You should also talk a little bit about our Tier 10. 2 piece is amazing and basically allows us to completely cancel out the penalty for Divine Plea. 4 Piece is absolutely terrible and should never be picked up.
In the discussion of a Protection sub-spec, you should mention that the paladin should use Righteous Fury, but ONLY when snap agro will not be a problem. Holy Paladins with Righteous Fury shouldn’t have long-term agro problems, but grabbing snap agro on spawning adds (Rotface, Saurfang, Deathwhisper), or stealing a bite from a DPS on the Blood Queen, is very common.
Finally, you can hide the list of attached files. It should be towards the bottom of the options when you edit your guide.
Thanks for the excellent guide, don’t let me nitpicking discourage you! 🙂