Holy Paladin PvE Guide, updated 3.3

[Noblebeastx]

Holy Paladin PvE guide.

Realistically there weren't many significant changes for 3.3 as far as Holy Paladins are concerened, but I have officially updated it anyway.

Constructive criticism appreciated.

Contents:
1. Intro
2. Talents
3. Spells
4. Addons
5. Stats
6. Gems and Enchants
7. Heroics
8. Advanced Notes
9. FoL vs. HL builds

1. Intro



This guide is primarily intended to help out with any questions a Holy paladin may have for PvE content, whether they are a fresh first time 80, or have been rocking their pally since Vanilla. Now, before we get ahead of ourselves, let me explain what this guide will NOT cover; PvP, Leveling, Tanking, Non-Holy healing builds, Shockadins, and DPS.

What it does have is a particular set of skills...er, yeah actually. A skill most highly in demand; Healing in group instances.

Feel free to debate any information I give. If you disagree with my stat priorities, or my choice of talents, tell me, but do so reasonably and tell me why.

With that, let us dig a little deeper into a group setting and learn the basics. If you have done instances before, as a healer or otherwise, this is probably unnecessary review, and you can skip ahead to section 2.

In a PvE group, you gather with 4 other people to run through a dungeon, kill 4 or 5 bosses, and get loot. That's the idea anyway. As a healer, your job is to keep those other 4 people (and yourself) alive. What are the jobs for the other people?

Well, 3 will be DPS (damage per second), who's main goal is to make the baddies die. The other one will be a tank, who will force all the enemies to attack him, preventing the rest of the group from getting hurt. The tank is your main customer. He will take the most damage the most often, and you have to patch him back up. If the tank dies, in all likelihood the whole group will die. Same goes for you dying.

Now you are a paladin, and you might notice that there are other classes that can heal. What sets you apart? What makes you unique amongst healers?

Why, your single target heals! A paladin has the most mana-efficient, most powerful, fastest heals on one target. If only the tank is taking damage, you will be a happy camper. This however, may make our weakness pretty clear; lack of multi-target healing. The only ability that allows us to heal more than one target at once is Beacon of Light (but it's a goodie!). Early on, this weakness can be a problem, but as you advance and gear up, you will find yourself having less and less trouble healing your group.


2. Talents



Holy

If you want to do any serious content as a healadin, you will want to get Beacon of Light. This means going at least 51 points in to Holy. Also, you won't be taking any PvP talents, so this means there is little reason to go further than 54 points in Holy. Now, as we go down the tree, these are the talents you simply must have maxed out;

-Spiritual Focus
-Healing Light
-Divine Intellect
-Illumination
-Divine Favor
-Sanctified Light
-Holy Power
-Light's Grace
-Holy Shock (HS)
-Holy Guidance
-Divine Illumination
-Judgements of the Pure
-Infusion of Light (IoL)
-Enlightened Judgements
-Beacon of Light

Now if you try just taking these talents, you will get stuck at a few points. This means you must choose some other talents to invest at least 4 points into. Your top candidates are;

-Aura Mastery
-Improved Lay on Hands
-Improved Blessing of Wisdom
-Blessed Hands

Improved Blessing of Wisdom is probably one of the best choices, however it doesn't stack with Shaman Totems, so it may be unnecessary in raids, especially 25 man (I recommend it for 5 mans though). You can go without it if you want the other talents instead also. If you like, you can even max out all 4, but this will lock you out of talents in the fourth tier of Ret or Prot. Speaking of which, lets take a look at those trees next.

Prot

The Protection tree offers extra healing and a nice cooldown if you would like to go this way. It also offers the only talent that buffs Sacred Shield. The downside is that you will have to waste a good number of points to get to the juicy talents in tier 4. If you want to go this way, talents you must get are;
-Divinity
-Guardian's Favor
-Divne Sacrifice
-Divine Guardian
-Improved Devotion Aura (Not necessary if you run with a Resto Druid or Prot Pally )

Ret

Retribution doesn't have talents that are as directly awesome for healing, but it does contain some nice big juicy crit bonuses. It also has fewer (virtually no) wasted points in PvP talents, instead getting buffs for your party. Talents to grab include;
-Benediction
-Heart of the Crusader
-Improved Blessing of Might
-Conviction
-Sanctity of Battle
-Pursuit of Justice (not recommended for early content, but is viable)

Divinity vs. Sanctity of Battle
A lot of debate emerges from these two talents. With 51 points in Holy, it is not possible to max out both of these. The choices are either 5/5 divinity, or 2/5 divinity and 3/3 Sanctity. Now, don't worry to much, because the truth of the matter is it doesn't make a big enough difference to fret over.

Sanctity will give you marginally better mana-efficiency, and divinity will put out slightly bigger numbers. One thing to note is that a lot of healing will be over-heals, so you will have more healing than needed anyway. However, sometimes more potent HL's are great. It's all up to you.

If you are new to 80 healing, Sanctity will probably be the better way to go, as your heals are not going to benefit as much from Divinity, and mana will be your biggest limiting factor. As you approach higher levels of gear Divinity scales higher.

Glyphs

Three majors, three minors. Lets start with the majors. A must have is the Holy Light glyph, which gives you your only method of healing more than 2 targets at once. Not really the greatest AoE heal, but definitely useful.

Another major slot should be taken by either the Seal of Light or Seal of Wisdom glyph, your choice. If mana is a concern at all, go with the SoW glyph. If you don't think your heals are strong enough, go with the SoL glyph.

This leaves one last major glyph slot. In 3.1 there are lots of glyphs that could all take up this spot. Candidates include glyphs of Flash of Light, Beacon of Light, Divinity, and Holy Shock.

-FoL glyph will increase your mana efficiency and throughput by giving 5% more crit.
-Beacon glyph will increase the duration by 50%, effectively reducing the mana cost.
-Divinity will turn LoH into an emergency mana button by restoring more mana to you and your target (it will also restore double that mana if cast on yourself!).
-Holy Shock makes your instant heal a bit more reliable in fights that require a lot of movement by reducing the cooldown by 1 second. More of a PvP glyph really.

Minor glyphs aren't as amazing, but they have some good effects for Holy Paladins. Good choices are Glyphs of Blessing of Wisdom and Lay on Hands. Since seals are now 30 minutes long, glyph of the wise is pretty lackluster, but the other 3 glyphs are equally unimpressive. Go with Glyph of Blessing of Kings or Glyph of the wise for the 3rd slot.

TL;DR FOR TALENTS

Cookie cutter Holy/Ret build;

http://talent.************.com/?pala...yt,kRJ-3R,9767

Cookie cutter Holy/Prot builds;

http://talent.************.com/?pala...0i,kRJ-3R,9767

http://talent.************.com/?pala...Us,kRJ-3R,9767

Major Glyphs;
-Holy Light
-Seal of Light or Seal of Wisdom
-Choose one: Holy Shock/Beacon/Divinity/Flash of Light

Minor Glyphs;
-Blessing of Wisdom
-Lay on Hands
-Blessing of Kings

3. Spells



Holy Light
A large heal with a high mana cost. Glyphed it does some splash healing to nearby targets, which is very nice. Regardless of what strategy you use, keeping up Light's Grace is always a good idea, so even if you are spamming FoL you should throw in a HL every 10-13 seconds for good measure.

Flash of Light
Cheaper, faster, and more efficient than HL, you will probably get another big percentage of your healing from this (more so on trash, less so on bosses). IoL gives you instant cast FoL's, which are great for group healing, or giving the tank a quick top-off. Sacred Shield will give FoL an insane crit rate, further increasing it's healing per mana, not to mention a HoT effect which you should keep rolling at all times.

Holy Shock
As the only actual instant heal, this spell is highly useful when you must move to avoid fire, etc.
With the ability to proc IoL, this could easily account for 10%+ of your healing. You don't need to use it every cooldown, but it should be cast with some frequency.

Beacon of Light
The main form of multi-healing for paladins. This talent is simply amazing really, allowing the best single target heals there are to now affect two targets. It now transfers all overhealing as well, so you should almost never have to cast a heal directly on the beacon (but you will). A general rule of thumb you will have this on the tank, so if you have to heal someone else the tank doesn't get left out. One thing to remember is that there is a slight delay from the heal going off to beacon taking effect, so in case of emergency it may be better to just heal the beacon directly.

Sacred Shield
If you are confused on how this spell works, allow me to elaborate. When cast, the buff will be placed on the target, and at this point there are no actual affects. After the target gets hit, he will receive a second buff which gives him the damage shield, and increases FoL's crit chance for 6 seconds, or until the set amount of damage has been absorbed.

Since it can only be used on one target, most of the time you will be putting this on the tank for the mitigation and the FoL bonuses. There are situations, however, where this is better used on someone else, such as someone pulling aggro, fights where melee will get hit, OT in raids, etc.

Divine Illumination
Now we move into the cooldowns. This spell is a great way to preserve mana (your mana bar practically won't move!), allowing you to spam heals like mad. A lifesaver if you drop low on mana towards the end of a boss.

Divine Favor
A useful ability, one you shouldn't be afraid of using (2 mins isn't that long). A common situation to use this is if the tank drops low on health, pop this and Shock the tank, restoring a good amount of health and proccing Infusion of Light, allowing you to then use an instant FoL or stronger HL on the tank.

Divine Plea
This spell is above all else a god send. Using this between pulls can eliminate the need to stop and drink. The downside here is obviously the reduced healing, but if think you can take the loss, go ahead and use it in battle, but you don't need to spam it every cooldown if you are worried about the penalty. Many boss fights have lulls in which little to no healing is needed (Svalla in UP, Anub'arak in AN, Ingvar in UK, etc), leaving a good opportunity to use this spell. A spell which will get better and better as you gear up. Using Avenging Wrath and any trinkets you have at the same time can significantly offset the penalty on this spell.

Lay on Hands
Self explanatory mostly, a very big heal on a very big cooldown = panic button. This is probably best used on the tank if he comes to the brink of death and just can't wait another second or two for a big heal. Glyph of Divinity can turn it into a mana gain for you as well(double the mana if you target yourself and have the glyph). It will cause forbearance if you target yourself, but not if you target someone else.

Hand Spells
These are some very interesting and unique cooldowns that, when used appropriately, can be very powerful.
-Sacrifice; Transfers 30% of damage the target takes to you. Good for using on the tank when he is receiving heavy damage that could overwhelm one target, but make sure your health is topped off first.
-Freedom; More of a PvP spell, but can be handy in PvE. Use here is fairly simple, get yourself or a party member out of snares. If the tank gets snared or rooted somehow, probably best to use it on him.
-Salvation; A threat reduction cooldown. Proper use of this one generally requires a threat meter, but the default UI shows an orange or red glow on players that have a high risk of pulling aggro. Best used during Boss Fights on DPS that may pull aggro.
-Protection; Similar to bubble, but ONLY guards against physical damage, and the player can't use physical attacks. Magic damage can still pass both ways through this (i.e. you can be hit by magic and cast spells). This makes it exceptionally good to use on clothies who are in danger of getting clobbered by melee, as it will protect them and they can continue to deal damage.

Aura Mastery
Best used with a resistance aura for some significant damage reduction, or Concentration Aura if there is a high chance of spell interrupts (e.g. Malygos Phase 1 vortex).

Divine Sacrifice & Divine Guardian
Very nice talent(s) if you decide to go Holy/Prot. Divine Sacrifice affects your party (NOT raid, just party) with a Hand of Sacrifice affect. Divine Guardian(which you should take if you get Sacrifice) gives your whole raid a 20% damage reduction bonus, lasting 6 seconds, that is completely independent of the Sacrifice buff. This allows you to activate Sacrifice and immediately cancel it and still get the effect from Guardian.

Seals, Blessings, Judgements
Your seal of choice should be either Wisdom or Light, depending on which glyph you chose. As for Blessings, Wisdom is the way to go most of the time, especially early on. An extra 100mp5 is not bad. Kings is an equally good choice once you gear up a good bit. The only problem is that, other than Int, a Holy Paladin gains very little from those base stats.

If there is another paladin in the group, make sure you manage to have Kings and Wisdom up. Getting this can be tricky, because the other paladin will probably want different buffs (prot: Sanc, Ret: Might and Kings). This is why you have the Blessing of Wisdom glyph. You can give the other paladin a greater blessing, then give yourself a normal blessing for the same duration.

Lastly, Judgements. With JotP, you should be judging every fight. That 15% haste buff is too good not to use.

Applying it

This is the hardest part to describe. You can't make a healing “rotation” like you can for dps. The trick to this is in knowing the situation, predicting what will happen next, and healing accordingly. For instance, say I notice the tank get hit and his health drops down 3k. This could easily be resolved with a FoL, but as I am casting that, the tank gets hit again and is down to 8k. So, after I heal he is down a net total of 5k. Now what? Should I use HL just in case, even though it may be overkill, or do I use FoL to save mana (assuming this is an intense fight)? Could I Holy Shock him (that's the way I'd go actually) assuming it's not on CD?

You will have to make these kinds of decisions as a healer, and do so in less than a second or two. Nothing can really replace experience and knowing your abilities in this field. Be aware of how much your spells heal for and test them regularly if you aren't sure. Learn boss fights ahead of time (wowwiki has good tactics), and make sure you are with a competent group that also knows the fights.

4. Addons



Alright, let me be first to say that these are not in any way necessary. They do make life easier though.

First, basic health and healing addons. These watch your groups health and allow you to target and heal them easily. Some options are;
-Healbot
HealBot Continued - Addons - Curse
-Grid and Clique
Grid - Addons - Curse
Clique - Addons - Curse
-Pitbull
PitBull Unit Frames 3.0 - Addons - Curse
-Vuhdo
VuhDo - Addons - Curse

A threat meter may be nice (Omen, Diamond Threat Meter), but aren't totally necessary for a healer, made mostly for dps and tanks.
Omen Threat Meter - Addons - Curse

Pally Power is useful for keeping blessings organized with more than one paladin in the group (HIGHLY recommended, every pally ought to have this)
PallyPower - Addons - Curse

For Holy Paladins this is a great addon with the weird name CLCBPT (I just call it the Baconator) that gives timers for Beacon, Sacred Shield, Judgements of the Pure, and the FoL HoT. I HIGHLY recommend it.
Paladin Beacon of Light, Sacred Shield Tracker - Addons - Curse

Lastly, everyone that does heroics and raids should have Deadly Boss Mods.
Deadly Boss Mods - Addons - Curse

5. Stats


Gear will make or break you in WoW, even for healers. If you are undergeared, you will find yourself being overwhelmed by what seems to be impossible amounts of damage. The way to overcome this is through running 5-mans regularly and knowing what to look for in equipment. Let's begin with the latter. Here are your stats in order of most important to least;

Intellect
Easily the best stat for a Holy Paladin is Intellect. Besides giving the obvious increase in mana, it also gives 0.06% crit chance for every 10 points of Int. In addition, with the talent Holy Guidance, you will receive 2 SP for every 10 Int. This is very useful, as even a fresh 80 healadin can have up to 800 intellect unbuffed.

Spell power
Spell power. It makes your heals bigger, what else do you need to know? If you want to make a Flash of Light heavy build you may want to gem for Spellpower over Intellect. Either way, probably the second most important stat.

Haste
You can have the most powerful healing spell in the world, but if you can't cast it before the tank dies it is useless. Haste will decrease the time it takes to cast spells, ever so slightly. It may not seem like much, but there is no reason you should have to wait another 0.08 seconds to recover. More haste = more spells cast every minute = more healing. It also lowers the GCD slightly (to 1 sec at it's fastest)

Mana per 5
Since Illumination dropped to 30% mana return MP5 is more desirable these days. If you are using a FoL centered build, mp5 is superior to crit for regen, though crit does give more throughput for FoL than HL.

Crit
So crit has lost it's shine a bit these days. It still has it's importance though, with the ability to trigger Illumination and Infusion of Light. Not an imperative on every piece of gear, but useful.

6. Gems and Enchants



Gems

Yellow Gems: Use Brilliant King's Amber (20 Int) or Brilliant Autumn's Glow (16 Int) depending on how much gold you can afford to spend. Put these in every gem slot, except one or two for the Meta required red/blue gems.

Red Gem requirement: You only need ONE red gem to meet the requirement for the Meta. After that, always use the yellow gems listed above, don't try to match socket colors. Either Luminous Ametrine (12 SP/10 Int) or Luminous Monarch Topaz (9 SP/8 Int).

Blue Gem Requirment: You only need ONE blue gem to meet the requirement for the Meta. After that, always use the yellow gems listed above, don't try to match socket colors. Either Dazzling Eye of Zul (10 Int/5 mp5) or Dazzling Forest Emerald (8 Int/4 mp5).

Better Option: Instead of wasting two gem slots on a red and blue gem, just use a Nightmare Tear (10 to all stats) if you can. Fills both the red and blue requirements, and takes only one slot!

Meta: You will want the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond for your meta. It gives 21 Intellect and a chance to restore 600 mana on a spell cast. Easily the best meta available to you. Make sure it's activated and you're all set.

Enchants

Head - Arcanum of Burning Mysteries
Arcanum of Burning Mysteries - Item - World of Warcraft

Shoulders - Greater Inscription of the Storm
Greater Inscription of the Storm - Item - World of Warcraft

Chest - Powerful Stats
Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats - Spell - World of Warcraft
OR Exceptional Mana
Enchant Chest - Exceptional Mana - Spell - World of Warcraft

Waist - Eternal belt buckle
Eternal Belt Buckle - Item - World of Warcraft

Legs - Sapphire Spell Thread
Sapphire Spellthread - Item - World of Warcraft

Boots - Icewalker
Enchant Boots - Icewalker - Spell - World of Warcraft
OR Greater Vitality
Enchant Boots - Greater Vitality - Spell - World of Warcraft

Bracers - Exceptional Intellect
Enchant Bracers - Exceptional Intellect - Spell - World of Warcraft

Gloves - Exceptional Spellpower
Enchant Gloves - Exceptional Spellpower - Spell - World of Warcraft

Cloak - Greater Speed
Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed - Spell - World of Warcraft

Weapon - Mighty Spellpower
Enchant Weapon - Mighty Spellpower - Spell - World of Warcraft
OR Major Intellect
Enchant Weapon - Major Intellect - Spell - World of Warcraft

Shield - Greater Intellect
Enchant Shield - Greater Intellect - Spell - World of Warcraft

7. Heroics



So I used to have a pre-heroic gear list on here, but removed it due to space issues. To make up for it I can offer a link to a similar gear list as an alternative;

Laser Chicken: Holy Paladin Pre-Naxx Pre-Heroic gear list!

More of this section coming soon

8. Advanced Notes



HASTE SOFT CAP
There is an amount of haste referred as the "soft cap". A soft cap means a point where the stat becomes significantly less valuable, but not entirely useless. For Holy Paladins this only applies to one of our stats; Haste.

The Haste softcap is 682 Haste Rating. Going past this is not a complete waste, but still not as helpful. I am putting this here first so anyone can find this. If you would like to understand why this is the softcap, keep reading.

The softcap is 50% haste, this is the point where the GCD can not be reduced any further (it has hit it's minimum of 1 sec). This means that no matter how much haste you build after this, there is always a one second cooldown between your casts. At this point, haste no longer increases your effective Healing Per Second (HPS) with a FoL heavy build. It can, however, still reduce the time of your HL casts, which will take longer than the GCD.

The reason you need 682 Haste Rating is because that gives you 20.6% haste from gear. Then the rest of the haste comes from raid buffs, which multiply with each other. Judgements of the Pure gives 15%, Wrath of Air totem (Shaman buff) gives 5%, and one of either Swift Retribution (Ret Paladin buff) or Moonkin Aura (Balance Druid Buff) give 3% (Ret and Moonkin don't stack). Multiply those values together, 1.15*1.05*1.03*1.206 = 1.50. This brings your GCD to 1 second, and it won't go any further. Thus, there isn't a need to stack haste after 682 haste rating, but having a little extra doesn't hurt, It is just generally considered more effiecient to start stacking spellpower or regen stats at that point.


OVERHEALING
Holy Paladins can face some discrimination here. With big single target heals, you will do a lot of overhealing (especially HL spamming). In all likelihood, you will top overhealing, bypassing the other healers by a long shot. Do not worry, this is normal. Just ask yourself and your guild these questions if the issue comes up;
Are you wiping?
Is the tank dying?
Is anyone dying?
Are you going oom?

If the answer to all of these is no, than you are perfectly fine. You are doing your job, and doing it well. If you answered yes to any of them, then there may be an issue, but that doesn't mean your overhealing is the culprit.

Look at the length of the fight, did the dps go too slow? Did the tank lose aggro? Did people forget to move out of the fire? These are all much more common reasons for wipes than a paladin's overhealing.

GUILDS
FIND A GOOD GUILD. Know them, make sure they are good. Even the best healer in the world will fail in a raid with 24 mouth-breathers.


9. FoL vs. HL builds



NOTE: This usually only applies to high end raiding paladins. If you are only running 5 mans this is not as important of an issue, but you may want to know anyway.

So if you've heard anything at all about raid Holy Paladins you probably know about this. What's that? You haven't heard? Well that's ok, because I'll fill you in.

The idea here is that you can build your spec and stats to favor either FoL or HL, and this is more beneficial then trying to just mix the two (though there are still times you will want to cast the other spell).

There are a lot of misconceptions about this. In either build you don't completely remove the other spell from your bars, and you don't cast 90% HL and 10% FoL or vise versa. If you want to ask "which one should I be casting" I don't have a solid answer for that. It depends on the situation, circumstances, what's going to happen next, and a million other factors that change from second to second in combat. YOU need to make the decision, I can't tell you to cast HL constantly at random targets and pray it works. Be aware of how much your spells heal for, how much health the target has lost, how likely he is to take more damage before you finish casting, how your other members are doing, and how much mana you have. You don't need to cast HL on someone down 3k health, and a FoL isn't suitable when the tank is hanging on at 20%. Ultimately, these are just two different ways to gem.

Which one is better you ask? Well, I'd probably say Intellect gemming (aka the HL build). It's more reliable on average. If your raid group has two Holy Paladins, you can probably be more successful with raid healing, thus getting more benefit from SP gemming (the FoL build).

FoL
In a flash of light build, you will want to gem spellpower. Yes I know earlier I said Intellect, but if you want a strong FoL build you will want to have at least 2.5k spellpower, and preferably higher(I'd suggest at least a 226 average item level and lots of gem slots before you try this). This can get your FoL up to about 5k+ non-crit, 7k+ crit. Another important thing is being haste softcapped, as you will need to chain cast FoL, and never miss a global cooldown.

The advantage to this build is that regen becomes trivial. FoL consumes very little mana, and a moderate amount of mp5 can keep you spamming for a long time. Also important to this build is Sacred Shield (which also scales well with SP), and the HoT effect from Infusion of Light. Casting Holy Shock frequently is also very beneficial for the IoL procs.

The downside is that casting HL without a large mana pool can drain you quickly. HL in this case is more of an emergency heal, but it does pay off to keep Light's Grace up, so a HL every ten to fifteen seconds thrown in will help.

Libram: Deadly/Furious/Relentless Gladiator's Libram of Justice. Available from Arena vendors in Dalaran sewers. Deadly is available for only Honor Points, Furious and Relentless require Arena Ratings and Points.

HL
A Holy Light build, as previously stated, gems straight Intellect to build a massive mana pool. This allows a ton of HL spamming with a replenishment effect. FoL can still be used for a quick patch-up heal, but is not nearly as powerful.

The pros for this are a massive amount of HPS and a reliable method to keep tanks alive in even the toughest conditions. Keeping the heal fast and powerful makes it seem borderline overpowered (and in some ways, it really is), but considering the current raiding environment this is borderline mandatory.

The cons to this build is that it requires a bit more regen. You need to be able to support this mana intensive healing build, and if you don't have enough it will quickly show when you are oom two minutes into the fight. On the other hand though, this level of regen is fairly achievable with easy to gather gear and basic raid buffs, not too mention Divine Plea. HL builds also have a harder time supporting raid healing due to weaker FoL's and the slower HL cast time. For the most part this shouldn't be an issue if you are assigned to to tank healing.

Libram: Libram of Renewal, available from the Emblem of Heroism vendors in Dal.

If you want more advice from someone who knows paladins twice as well as I do, check out Ferraro's guides;

http://ferarro.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-to-holy.html
Paladin Schmaladin: Holy... Holy, Batman!
Paladin Schmaladin: How To: Healing 5-Mans
Paladin Schmaladin: How To: Healing Raids

[mikeo]

well isnt this guide alittle outdated or something, because i have over 2500sp unbuffed, and that fol build totally fails.