[How-To] Holy Paladin Healing

[kaelzen07]

This is my first post, so i figured i'd post what i posted to my guild forums. Enjoy, and please no flammers.

Contents
Introduction
Acknowledgments
Rule Zero
0. UI/Addons/Hardware
1. Holy Paladin Healing Theory
Strategies
A) Technical Healing
B) Napalm Healing
2. Tools of the Trade - Spells
3. Tools of the Trade - Talents and Specs
A) Talents by Tree
B) The Three Viable Specs: Crit-Tastic, Divinity and Divine Sacrifice
4. Tools of the Trade - Mana Management Strategies
5. Gear
A) Itemization Theory
B) Gemming
C) Glyphs
D) Tier Gear
E) Librams
F) Trinkets
G) Consumables
6. Conclusion


Introduction

Holy paladins (and other pallies who offspec holy interested in some advice) have come to me many times over my tenure with my guild, and I've dispensed the contents of this guide in dribs and drams to a variety of folks, via tell between pulls, sometimes in a separate vent channel after a raid, and there's never enough time to tell the whole story and shovel the full glut of information into their heads. The last time someone asked me for the scoop, I thought, "Why should I desperately repeat myself in purple text between tanks getting hit when I could just write a guide, stick it on the forums, and direct them there?" It's been a long and annoying experience, training up healadins only to have IRL snatch them away as fast as they've been geared; I'm hoping this guide will save me the headache and, perhaps, instill some confidence into sparkly new raiding healadins, who'll know that at least they have pretty much all I can offer them, such as it is.



Acknowledgments

The sum of my experiences draws partly from leveling and raiding this alt purely as a holy paladin (before horde had paladins, I was a fire/arcane mage), but also from too many insights from other raiders and paladin guides to name.


Rule Zero: Knowledge is Power

* Know the encounters like the back of your hand. Research is your responsibility; watch movies, read guides, and pay attention during fights until you've got all the different parts down. The difference between success and failure on every fight is how much you, individually, know about it.
* Know that healing meters mean nothing, no matter the fuzzy feeling you get when you slaughter the others. Meters mean nothing because healing is inherently competitive in a way dps is not (there's always enough boss to damage, but rarely enough hit points to have everyone healing at 100% of their output), and overhealing doesn't mean much anymore either. Don't base your healer self-esteem on having the biggest number. Base your pride on fights with no deaths, and being part of a team of tanks, dps and other healers that makes that possible.
* Know your tanks. Some of them will be avoidance tanks, who only get hit rarely, but then it's a doozy. Some of them will be mitigation tanks, who get hit more often, but for less. Most will fall somewhere in between; if you're trying to maximize efficiency, there are different approaches for each kind. All of them have cooldowns that will occasionally be very important, and must occasionally be supplemented with cooldowns of your own. Knowing who has what and when they use them is important. You and your tanks are a team. Get to know their tanking style, and let them know your healing style, so that you'll operate like a smooth, sexy machine.
* Know your dps. Some of them will pull aggro often, and you can save them before (with Hand of Salvation) or after (with Hand of Protection). The melee will probably need more heals than the ranged. The ranged have a frightening propensity to get OUT of range. Be aware of where they are. They'll blame you a lot for their deaths, but roll with it. In the end, encounters are written so that dps screwups usually lead to damage that you have to heal, like it or not. Heal them so well that when the raid hits the Berserk timer and wipes, it is unequivocally the fault of the dps. Then mock them shamelessly, if they've been giving you grief lately.
* Know your healing team. Know who does what, and why. Know your role on a given encounter, but know everyone else's as well -- if not how they do it, then at least what they're doing. Know what it means when a given healer dies. You and the other healers are also a team, just like you and your tanks, only squishier (since you're the only part of the team in plate). Together you comprise a hard-working crowd performing the most thankless task in Warcraft. Treat them with respect, and you'll soon earn respect of your own. (Also, you can snark about the tanks and the dps with them, which is often therapeutic.)


0. Addons/UI/Hardware

[I put these first so that you can see what I see during raids (which shapes my behavior and therefore my strategy), but if it's too technical for you, skip to the next section.]

I raid on a shitty old laptop, at 20 or fewer frames per second, with all the graphics turned down, and I do not stand in eyebeams nor get hit by rocket strikes, and have no trouble keeping up with the damage going around. NO EXCUSES! If I can do it with my machine, you can do it with yours.

A) Grid and Clique

These babies get filed together because they're used together. Grid is simply the most compact and modular raid frame out there, with an extraordinarily light load on your memory, given all it provides; with Clique, you bind spells to your mouse buttons that will target whoever you're moused over on Grid. Losers too lazy to mod their own addons (or people too busy to learn how to wade through Grid's somewhat intimidating menus; it does have a bit of a learning curve) use HealBot instead, but there's no school like the old school. Grid/Clique is tailored far more precisely to what I need than HealBot ever could be, and if you have a half hour to figure it out, I recommend it highly.

I have Grid set up to show me:
* Peoples' health bars and deficits (for mole whacking)
* When my Beacon of Light is on someone (so I know when to refresh it)
* When any paladin's Sacred Shield is on someone (to avoid overlap; two paladins' SS on the same person is a waste of a SS)
* Incoming heals on everyone by everyone but me (so I can cancel mine if necessary)
* All HoTs on everyone, separated by color for which HoT they are (so I can decide who needs heals the most)
* When people are debuffed with Magic, Poison or Disease (and which debuff it is; Curses are on a separate grid location just to satisfy my curiosity, but since we can't Cleanse 'em, it doesn't get a priority spot)
* When someone has aggro (to save them, one way or another)
* When someone has low mana (useful for keeping an eye on the other healers so you know when it's time to start doing their job as well as your own, or who to ask to help you when you run low on mana)
The list goes on and on, but those are the important ones.

My Clique is set to a three-button mouse as follows:
Left-Click: Flash of Light. Middle Button: Cleanse. Right-Click: Holy Light.
Ctrl-Left: Beacon of Light. Ctrl-Middle: Hand of Salvation. Ctrl-Right: Sacred Shield.
Shift-Left: Lay on Hands. Shift-Middle: Hand of Protection. Shift-Right: Holy Shock
Alt-Left: Hand of Sacrifice (which used to be on Ctrl-Middle, but caused tragic mix-ups with BoP. More on that later).

I also regularly judge, but that isn't on my mouse, nor are our myriad of mana management tools.

B) BigWigs BossMods

Earning the love and respect of the raiding world since ThaddiusArrows in Naxx-40. It's like DBM, only with more cleverness for less memory usage. Does DBM have you shout when a General Vezax Shadow Crash is targetting you? I think NOT! But if you're in love with Deadly, that's okay too. Just make sure you run one of them. Nobody can be too proud to snub a lightweight bossmod like BigWigs, and if they are, they're letting arrogance overrule common sense. Boss ability timers, in particular, are too valuable to -not- have on your screen, so you can plan your big slow heals ahead of time.

C) PallyPower

PallyPower ends the headache of organizing and buffing shittons of Blessing of X on the different classes within the raid. Love it for this, but don't Righteous Fury yourself by accident with the top button. In fact, it's probably best if you get rid of that button entirely. ^^; Even if you're a masochist who doesn't like this addon, at least run it in the background so the raid leaders can use it for assignments.

D) Quartz

Quartz remains among the best casting bar mods out there, sorting out latency effects and with many other useful functions besides.

And that's it! I'm kind of a minimalist.


1. Holy Paladin Healing Theory (or: what we do and why)

This part of the guide does assume some basic knowledge about paladin abilities (enough to get a healadin recruited into the guild), which are actually only defined in detail in the 'Tools of the Trade' section. If you have trouble understanding this part, read it again after reading the rest of the guide.

There are, in simplest terms, two ways to heal as a paladin (or in general, really): 'reactively' and 'proactively.' Either you react to damage already taken, or you proactively move against damage about to be taken. Both strategies have their place in different encounters and assignments, often simultaneously. The most coherent explanation I ever heard of the difference between the two for healadins called them 'technical healing' and 'napalm healing,' so that's what the vernacular is going to be, though if you're really esoteric you could liken them to the arts of war or use a Go analogy.

A) Technical Laser Healing

Technical healing is the classic Whack-A-Mole game where you see someone's health bar drop, and you start casting Flash of Light or Holy Light while watching your target's bar go up to full from all the druid and priest HoTs before your cast time completes. To minimize this extraordinary annoyance, there are two strategies:

1. Cancel your heal, particularly when you see someone else direct healing your target for more than their current deficit. Inadvisable if you know there's going to be another big hit soon, or if they're at particularly low health.
2. Holy Shock before the HoTs can steal your fun, and thumb your nose at them. Double points if you crit and instant Flash of Light another target. Not enormously mana efficient but IMMENSELY satisfying.

Lest I sound misleading, technical healers don't always raid heal -- although they're very effective at doing so, especially if they throw Beacon of Light on the tank. In fact, a skilled technical healer with a Beaconed tank can put out terrifying amounts of hps with minimal overhealing, making the role a valuable one.

Technical healers are proactive against predictable damage. Good examples of this: Sartharion's Flame Breath or Steelbreaker's Fusion Punch, both boss abilities which do heavy amounts of damage to a tank, but are on a several second cast timer. Keep the boss targeted. When the cast timer for the big hit starts, wait a beat, then start casting your Holy Light, so that it hits milliseconds after the big hit. Hitting milliseconds before is a lot easier than you think, so this timing takes practice, but it can be done. Quite a lot of damage in encounters is predictable if you know the fights deeply enough. Educate yourself. Rule Zero always applies.

B) Napalm Healing

The strategy of napalm healing can perhaps be best explained by laying out the assumptions that go into it:

1. I am assigned to the main tank(s).
2. The tank cannot take two hits in a row without dying*.
3. The tank could take two hits in a row within the casting time of one Holy Light, my only spell that heals enough to prevent death from the second hit.
4. There is a solid chance that the tank will take a hit within the casting time of my next Holy Light.
Conclusion: If I continuously bomb Holy Light on the tank, even when he's at full, much of the time he'll take a hit during my casting time, which I will heal back to full once my Holy Light completes, which is faster than I can react, faster than I can cast before he takes a second hit, thus saving his life.

*You'd be amazed how often this is true. Raid bosses can be vicious. It's like Patchwerk, all day, every day! Even trash (death of a thousand cuts) can kill a tank very, very quickly. However, before the tanks start howling over my characterization of them as two-hit squishies (instead of one-hit squishies like a mage), let me add that their cooldowns mitigate this to a large degree. Reasonably often, a tank can take TWO hits before dying, not one. Making them three-hit squishies. <3

One side-effect of this strategy is that you will have immense overhealing, especially if you're napalm healing one tank with a second tank beaconed. I sometimes get as high as 70%. Don't let the tittering of the other healers get to you. Let go of the idea that overhealing is somehow shameful, representing a loss of precision, a lack of control, that it flags you as a 'bad healer' to the officers. You KNOW you aren't being precise! You're NAPALM healing! Kablammo! Mushroom clouds of golden radiance, indiscriminately bombarding your target! If this was precision-based, we'd call it LASER healing (or, er, technical healing -- maybe laser is a better name, everyone loves lasers, pew pew pew). And nobody else can top off a tank as quickly and reliably as you, except for the druids with their ****ing T8.5 4-piece bonus, but we're happy for them, let's not be bitter. Wink Stand up for yourself and be proud, because you are doing an amazing thing -- healing for 15-20k in under a second, often effectively instantly when the tank gets hit right before your Holy Light completes.

Napalm healing has some other implications that are worth discussing.
1. It requires a lot of mana -- don't try it without 23k raid buffed, and 27k+ is better. Divine Illumination is your friend, and should be used every cooldown. Divine Plea, on the other hand, can only really be safely used with Avenging Wrath; if you're napalm healing, the raid is probably relying on you, and cutting your heals in half will kill the tank.
2. It's really boring after a while. It gets to you. To alleviate this boredom, it becomes extremely tempting to stop healing the tank and raid heal here and there, "when Raider X is about to die," "when Raid Healer Y is running oom." You'll justify it to yourself with a lot of excuses, but when the tank dies on your watch because you spent a global cooldown topping off a dps, none of them will be good enough for the officers. Beacon of Light makes it -somewhat- possible to indulge the Whack-A-Mole craving, but shouldn't be relied upon. Generally it's better to just grit your teeth and STAY ON THE TANK. If you can spare a global cooldown to heal someone else (who almost certainly won't benefit from the full healing value of a Holy Light), the tank may not need the napalm treatment. Ask the healing officer nicely to let you raid heal once in a while on fights where the boss hits like a wuss, and get it out of your system there.
3. A sub-point of 2. is that you can't actually safely heal YOURSELF while napalm healing, and so your health bar slips agonizingly lower and lower as you wait for the raid healers to do their job already and save you, increasing your stress. If Beaconing a second tank is an ineffective strategy for an encounter, and there's a lot of raid damage going around, Beacon yourself. Every few seconds, when a Holy Light isn't wasted to overhealing, you'll get healed for 20k. Thus you will live forever, rescuing your heart rate and giving the raid healers one less person to worry about.
4. Carefully suppress the panicked urge within yourself to Holy Shock the tank when he's really low on health because he took a hit right AFTER your Holy Light completed. Holy Light is drastically more Healing Per Second, and almost always the better route; Holy Shock may not save him from the second hit anyway, and wouldn't that be a pisser. If someone is actively helping you top him off, it's a little safer to Holy Shock, but still not necessarily wise.
5. The perennial healadin problem with healing while on the move is never more disruptive than when napalm healing. It's not impossible, but it will slow you down, and you will use Holy Shock while you're moving, which will drain your mana faster than ever. An encounter where there's an excessive amount of movement is an encounter where you want to make sure there's a second strong single target healer on the tank -- like a discipline priest, or a technical healing paladin. That way, when you have to get out of your groove for a few seconds to dodge the ray of death coming your way or the void zone spawning beneath you, the tank will still get healed. For similar reasons, encouraging your druids to keep rolling HoTs on the tank at all times serves you well. It lessens the immediacy of the danger; while you could possibly cover it alone, it's better not to risk the wipe, and healthier for the sanity.
6. "The Green Bar Zone," also a problem in Whack-A-Mole, can be very easy to fall into while napalm healing, where you just click Holy Light on the tank over and over again and don't pay attention to anything else. Even though little of what's going on around you may really -matter-, since you're casting Holy Light no matter what, pay attention to it -anyway-, just in case something unexpected happens and you have to react.

If you want a cookie for less overhealing, less mana consumption, and extra control, you can attempt 'advanced' napalm healing by starting to cast your holy lights continuously then canceling them right before they go off, if the tank hasn't taken damage yet. However, since human reaction time is, on average, roughly 200 ms, and you already have that much latency on your average connection, you can't -really- trust yourself; .4s is nearly a third of your Holy Light casting time! In the napalm style that's a pretty big window. In the time it takes you to decide he's not getting hit, stop casting, and restart casting, he'll probably get hit, and have to wait longer for the heal. So, buyer beware: challenge yourself, strive to improve, but don't get the tank killed.

In many encounters, you'll find yourself both technical and napalm healing, at different moments. Knowing how and when to apply each style is what turns a good healer into a great healer, and in the end that's something you have to learn for yourself.


2. Tools of the Trade - Spells

When considering the tools in our box,* ‬there are two major measures of a spell’s power and utility:* ‬healing per second,* ‬which represents sheer output* (‬if your average healing per second is greater than the average damage per second the tank is taking,* ‬you will keep him alive with ease barring INTENSELY bad luck, normally handled by his cooldowns*)‬,* ‬and healing per mana,* ‬which represents bang for your mana buck.* ‬In the end,* ‬healing per second is usually more important* (‬it doesn’t matter how cheaply you hoard your mana if the tank is dead*)‬.

Flash of Light* ("Fast and Little") – ‬In The Burning Crusade,* ‬healadins were infamous for being able to spam Flash of Light forever,* ‬and it comprised the vast majority of their healing style.* ‬Flash of Light is fast* (‬properly geared you’ll be casting at* ‬1.2* ‬seconds and down*) ‬and pretty cheap but, ‬in Wrath of the Lich King,* ‬lousy healing-per-second,* ‬with the healing-per-mana not SO much better than Holy Light for it to be worthwhile.* ‬It’s a useful tool for topping off the raid,* ‬and to use while moving after a Holy Shock crit procs Infusion of Light.* ‬Technical healers still use it quite a bit,* ‬but no longer exclusively.*

Holy Light ("The Mighty Glacier")* – ‬These days we’re accused of being able to cast Holy Light forever much in the same vein of FoL for TBC,* ‬but it’s a lie.* ‬Yes,* ‬I just described napalm healing as using this exact strategy,* ‬but* /‬forever/* ‬is pushing it.* ‬Three minutes of literally continuous casting is a bit more realistic* (‬most boss fights are at least seven*)‬,* ‬and in most encounters there are ebbs and flows in the fight where you can take a few cooldowns to manage your mana* (‬more on that in its own section*)‬.* ‬That said,* ‬Holy Light is our primary tool whenever you need to heal anyone for more than* ‬5k reliably* (‬rather than counting on a Flash of Light/Holy Shock crit*)‬.* ‬It scales beautifully with spellpower,* ‬it’s only a few tenths of a second slower than Flash of Light,* ‬and although it costs a lot more per cast,* ‬it isn’t as bad as you might think thanks to the mechanics by which healadins regain mana* (‬again,* ‬more on that in its own section*)‬.* ‬Holy Light is our sledgehammer,* ‬and you’ve seen paladin art* – those are our weapon of choice‬.* ‬With the glyph,* ‬it’s also our only aoe heal,* ‬with which you can heal the melee while you heal the tank.* ‬This is very cool.* ‬Anything that can kill a tank while he’s properly managing his cooldowns and you’re continuously spamming him with Holy Light is THE indicator that you need rolling HoTs or a second healer,* ‬but there aren’t many things that fall into that category.
It’s vital to understand the speed at which your Holy Lights cast.* ‬The FIRST Holy Light you cast is very slow* (‬two seconds and up*); ‬so slow that it is often valuable to cast one on the tank before the pull,* ‬just to proc the buff Light’s Grace,* ‬which reduces the cast time of Holy Light by half a second for the* ‬next twelve seconds.* ‬Once that’s up,* ‬as long as you cast Holy Light once every twelve seconds,* ‬your Holy Lights will always be fast,* ‬1.5s and down as your gear improves.* ‬If you anticipate that the tank will be taking heavy damage anytime soon,* ‬it is always worth casting a* ‬100%* ‬overhealing Holy Light on the tank whenever your Light’s Grace is about wear off,* ‬just to keep the self-buff around.* ‬That half second of casting time will kill a tank if you’re sloppy and let Light's Grace fall off.

Holy Shock* – ‬Once worthless,* ‬Holy Shock,* ‬our lonely heal in the instant cast category,* ‬is today a useful tool,* ‬but not to be used every cooldown.* ‬It’s particularly mana inefficient* (‬even worse than Holy Light*) ‬and including the Global Cooldown is actually worse healing per second than Holy Light as well.* ‬Its importance comes not,* ‬then,* ‬from those standards,* ‬but from other utilities.* ‬Holy Shock is the ONLY direct healing spell we can cast on the move*… ‬until we’ve cast Holy Shock.* ‬That’s because the other point of Holy Shock is what happens if it crits.* Crits‬ cause the talent Infusion of Light to proc,* ‬drastically increasing the crit chance of the next Holy Light cast,* ‬OR turning the next Flash of Light into an instant cast.* ‬Suddenly we have two instant casts* – ‬a Holy Shock crit followed by an instant Flash of Light is actually very good healing per second,* ‬and we can do it while we move out of a void zone.* ‬Holy Shock is most often cast on raid members for a quick topoff* (‬which will hopefully proc another quick topoff*)‬,* ‬but also occasionally on the tank.* ‬It isn’t as effective a panic button as a fast Holy Light.
Since half of the value of Holy Shock is from the crit proc,* ‬it’s best to macro it with the talent Divine Favor* (‬100%* ‬crit chance,* ‬once every* ‬2* ‬minutes*) ‬such that it’ll always try to cast Divine Favor whenever you use it,* ‬and even if DF is on cooldown,* ‬Holy Shock will still go off.* ‬That way you are getting some use out of DF instead of having to keep track of it separately and forgetting it exists.
Holy Shock is also an offensive spell,* ‬and good to use when the dps have hit the berserk timer and the raid needs to quickly shave off a few thousand hit points before the inevitable wipe.* ‬It still procs Infusion of Light on you if it crits.* ‬Hammer of Wrath is also useful for these moments,* ‬as are Exorcism,* ‬Consecrate and Shield of Righteousness,* ‬but they don’t get their own entries.* ‬Judgments are actually a decent chunk of damage,* ‬so don’t forget about them when it’s healer dps time.

Sacred Shield* – ‬This gem of a new ability is our bubble buff.* ‬It has a much prettier graphic than the priest bubble,* ‬but also much more complicated mechanics,* ‬which are worth understanding.* ‬Once you cast SS on a target,* ‬it persists on them for* ‬30* ‬seconds,* ‬but doesn’t actually do anything until the target takes a hit.* ‬The act of the target eating a hit procs a SEPARATE* ‬Sacred Shield buff,* ‬which is the actual meat of the spell* (‬and when the pretty graphic shows up*; ‬the rest of the time the bubble is* ‘‬invisible',* ‬or perhaps better understood as not actually being there*)‬.* ‬So you aren’t actually casting one bubble*; ‬you’re casting the guarantee that every time your target takes a hit,* ‬they will gain a bubble against future hits that lasts for up to six seconds.* ‬It doesn’t always survive that long* – ‬the amount of damage the bubble negates scales with your spellpower to an impressive degree,* ‬well over two thousand damage per shield with gear,* ‬but a single hit from a boss on a tank will use it all up in one go.* ‬The proc can only occur once every six seconds.* ‬So if you use it on a tank getting hit slightly more than once every six seconds,* ‬they’ll take over two thousand less damage,* ‬every other hit.*
Tank gets hit for standard damage.* ‬Sacred Shield procs.* ‬Tank gets hit for standard damage minus damage absorbed, using up* ‬Sacred Shield, which goes away.* ‬Tank gets hit for standard damage six seconds after the first hit.* ‬Sacred Shield procs.* ‬Tank gets hit for standard damage minus damage absorbed.* ‬Sacred Shield is used up and goes away.* ‬And so on*…
Over thirty seconds,* ‬that’s five bubbles and ten thousand damage prevented,* ‬and for a cheap mana cost to boot* – ‬Sacred Shield is our single best healing-per-mana value,* ‬and only consumes one Global Cooldown in all that time.* ‬Furthermore,* ‬damage absorbed does something that damage healed after the fact cannot* – ‬it can allow a tank to take two hits in a row without being healed.* ‬Two thousand damage less on the second hit is a very big deal.* ‬The bubble proc also increases your Flash of Light critical strike chance if you cast it on the target while it’s up,* ‬but on a tank,* ‬that will only be between the big hits he’s taking,* ‬so that aspect is pretty worthless.
Thanks to all this awesome packaged into one cooldown,* ‬you are expected to keep Sacred Shield on your tank with at least* ‬95%* ‬uptime.* ‬Don’t cancel a Holy Light to throw SS back up when it’s worn off,* ‬but take a moment to refresh it afterwards.* ‬Unfortunately,* ‬paladins can only have one Sacred Shield anywhere at a time* (‬this did not use to be the case,* ‬and SSing an entire raid through a Malygos vortex was a source of intense amusement*); ‬equally unfortunately,* ‬two Sacred Shields on one person are effectively one Sacred Shield because of the proc mechanic,* ‬and a big waste.* ‬So you want to coordinate with any other paladins to make sure you're SSing different people.* ‬Prot and ret paladins also have SS* (‬and the spellpower they need to make it viable,* ‬from talents*)‬,* ‬though they may not realize it since it’s an ability in the holy tree.* ‬Remind them of its existence,* ‬and recruit them to help you cover the tanks.* ‬Protadins can cover themselves without losing significant threat.* ‬Retadins can sometimes fit it into their crazy spontaneous rotation but you don’t want them nerfing their dps too significantly,* ‬so you can’t expect* ‬95%* ‬uptime out of them.*
If there is no aggro table,* ‬Sacred Shield yourself.

Beacon of Light* – ‬Our* ‬51-point talent is an interesting beast.* ‬Once you cast it on someone,* ‬usually a tank,* ‬making them the Beacon of Light,* ‬all of your heals on anyone else within* ‬40* ‬yards of them will ALSO heal the Beacon for however much you just healed anyone else.* ‬It lasts for one minute.* ‬This is the only time overhealing becomes important,* ‬because only ACTUAL healing will transfer across to the Beacon.* ‬If you have* ‬0%* ‬overhealing and raid members are reliably within* ‬40* ‬yards of the tank,* ‬you’ve just doubled your healing output.* ‬In reality,* ‬of course,* ‬you do have a lot of overhealing,* ‬even if you’re raid healing,* ‬so Beacon is never perfectly efficient.* ‬It can’t be relied on to top off a tank by healing the raid,* ‬simply because it’s a rare raid member who’s taken so much damage at the same time as the main tank that they need an entire Holy Light* (‬whereas the tank will need an entire Holy Light, ASAP, once they're hit*)‬.* ‬Don’t play down the awesome,* ‬though.* ‬It usually CAN be relied on to top off an OFFTANK,* ‬if you beacon them and heal the main tank,* ‬who should be taking more damage, IF you can convince the two of them to stay within* ‬40* ‬yards of each other whenever it’s reasonable for them to do so.* ‬If there is no offtank but there’s a lot of raid damage going around,* ‬you can always beacon YOURSELF while you heal the main tank* (‬or the raid*)‬.* ‬Beaconing the main tank while you heal the main tank is almost a complete waste of your Beacon* (‬and the hefty chunk of mana it takes to cast each minute*) ‬but it does let you diverge from your healing assignment for a second if you really,* ‬really need to.* ‬It’s a rare fight where Beacon is completely useless,* ‬but if you aren’t getting much out of it,* ‬don’t bother refreshing it,* ‬since it’s so expensive.

Cleanse* – ‬Cleanse rules.* ‬It’s an instant cast that will remove one poison,* ‬disease or magic debuff from a friendly target.* ‬There is no other spell that covers three categories at once,* ‬making us great at removing debuffs,* ‬but it can’t remove curses,* ‬so you’ll need to find a mage or a druid to do that.* ‬It also only cleanses one person at a time,* ‬one debuff per cast,* ‬which means it can take awhile to get to everyone*; ‬there are moments where a priest’s Mass Dispel is a more reasonable use of the healing team’s global cooldowns.* ‬A good rule of thumb is this:* ‬three or fewer people debuffed at a time is reasonable to Cleanse while holding down a technical healing assignment*; ‬more than that and you’ll be Cleansing full time* (‬which is also a viable assignment,* ‬and occasionally very important*)‬.* ‬Napalm healers have to be careful not to kill their tank by taking a global cooldown to cleanse something,* ‬but it’s occasionally possible,* ‬even important,* ‬particularly if it’s the tank debuffed.

Lay on Hands* – ‬This is our actual panic button in a way that Holy Shock is not,* ‬healing a target nearly to full,* ‬instantly.* ‬It can only be used once a fight,* ‬and if there are a lot of wipes,* ‬not every pull.* ‬More strategically,* ‬when improved by talents,* ‬Lay on Hands increases the recipient’s armor by* ‬50%* ‬for fifteen seconds,* ‬making it a once-a-fight Shield Wall,* ‬usable on demand.* ‬It also gives the target a shot of mana,* ‬giving us a sort of emergency Innervate,* ‬though mock any caster who asks for that use of it in any but the most specific of circumstances.* ‬Furthermore,* ‬properly glyphed,* ‬we get the same amount of mana back that we gave our target,* ‬some* ‬2300* ‬mana,* ‬and there’s never a bad time to receive that.* ‬If there isn’t anything else to use it on towards the end of a fight,* ‬you can always use it on yourself and get* ‬4600* ‬mana back.* ‬It’s better to keep it around for its save-a-tank properties,* ‬though,* ‬and manage your mana so that that won’t be necessary. I am in the habit of blowing my LoH on the main tank when a boss is at about 2%, regardless of whether or not the tank needs the health, just to Shield Wall him through the last few seconds of the fight, if I haven't used this ability yet.

Divine Shield (and Protection) - PvPers hate it, protadins avoid it, but we love the ability to be absolutely immune to all damage once every five minutes (and able to take half damage rather more often than that). You'll often want to keep your DS in reserve for a combo with Hand of Sacrifice (see below) but there are moments when it's incredibly handy to flip the encounter mechanics the bird, stand in a void zone, and heal the tank, dammit, because if you moved right now he'd die and the raid would wipe. SO THERE. Take THAT, encounter mechanic. (Strong feelings of defiance typically accompany a really clutch use of Divine Shield during a boss fight. My personal favorite use in Ulduar is on Kologarn's eyebeams, which stay targetted on you and make a pretty mist graphic as they fail to penetrate the shield.) Also good to pop when YOU pull aggro, which will happen occasionally, typically at the beginning of fights after the tank misses a few swings in a row, yet has taken shittons of damage, which you've fixed up for him. Or when you heal a tank before he establishes aggro on a pack. Nothing's more annoying to them, so don't DO that, wait for the Thunderclap, or Consecrate, or whatever it is the DKs do that makes that big rusty circle on my screen.

Divine Intervention - Blow this on someone after a wipe's been called. Pick the right person and you'll both be saved a repair bill; pick a person in the wrong spot and they'll have to pop the bubble and only you'll be saved a repair bill. Either way, you win!

Avenging Wrath* – ‬Increasing your damage and healing by* ‬20%* ‬once every three minutes is a valuable ability.* ‬You can time it for when you need the biggest heals,* ‬but more often it’ll be used as part of a mana management strategy,* ‬and is cross-listed in that section.

Righteous Fury* – ‬The cornerstone of protadin tanking,* ‬you can pull boss aggro off a tank with ludicrous ease if you have this activated by mistake.* ‬You can pull add aggro from other healers to yourself with ludicrous ease if you have this activated on purpose.

Hammer of Justice* – ‬On a one minute cooldown,* ‬this is our only interrupt,* ‬and the means by which you can interrupt the trash/boss about to heal itself or do something else really terrible if their cast bar is allowed to complete.* ‬Interrupt rotations are mostly the problem of tanks and dps,* ‬and you shouldn’t let HoJ distract you from your full-time healing job,* ‬but it can be really amazing if you have a moment.* ‬It can save a raid.* ‬The stun is handy on trash,* ‬a tool to save someone who’s pulled aggro.* ‬An add waltzes past you on their way to gank a clothie*? ‬Stun* ‘‬em,* ‬and by the time it’s worn off,* ‬the tank will already have picked it back up.

Turn Evil* – ‬You should never be assigned to CC a mob.* ‬Leave that to others.* ‬If you feel like you know better,* ‬you’d better know how to manage fears.

Hand of Sacrifice* – ‬Our other save-a-tank spell,* ‬often worked into* ‘‬save-a-tank cooldown rotations*’ ‬with Guardian Spirit,* ‬Pain Suppression,* ‬Last Stand,* ‬Frenzied Regeneration,* ‬Shield Wall,* ‬Survival Instincts,* ‬Icebound Fortitude and so on,* ‬is on a two minute cooldown.* ‬For a few seconds after casting it,* ‬30%* ‬of the damage dealt to its recipient is dealt to you instead.* ‬At the magnitudes at which tanks are taking damage* (‬especially at those times when HoSac is called for)‬,* ‬this will kill you faster than you can say lolwut,* ‬so effectively HoSac is on a* ‬5m cooldown with Divine Shield.* ‬If you felt like playing Russian Roulette you could use it with Divine Protection,* ‬but I wouldn’t risk it.* ‬Your death usually foretells the tank’s death*; ‬value your life accordingly.

Divine Sacrifice* – ‬The deep-in-prot cousin of HoSac,* ‬it redirects* ‬30-40%* ‬damage from the ENTIRE RAID to you,* ‬the only thing that can kill you faster than HoSac.* ‬Use only with Divine Shield,* ‬and only when the raid is taking heavy damage* (‬or within a save-a-tank cooldown rotation*)‬.* ‬Most healadins don’t have this,* ‬but some sacrifice* ‬5-8%* ‬crit to go get it,* ‬a particularly viable choice if you’re really well geared.* ‬More thoughts on whether or not to spec Divine Sacrifice are in the talents section.

Hand of Salvation* – ‬Poor ret paladins have to use this on themselves every time the cooldown comes up.* ‬Virtually every dps has some sort of aggro management tool,* ‬and the tanks usually have a large lead,* ‬but on certain buff-the-dps-so-they-can-chew-through-40-million-hitpoints encounters,* ‬your raid leader may call for you to Salv a dps who is a little too good at their job.* ‬If you’re an overachiever,* ‬watch Omen during trash pulls and use this pre-emptively.* ‬Don’t use it on a tank.

Hand of Protection* – ‬The* “‬other bubble.*” ‬I call it the* “‬bubble of shame,*” ‬though I resist the urge to make a macro along the lines of* ‘‬/cast Hand of Protection on target,* ‬/yell Astalanya BoPped target,* ‬SHAME SHAME SHAME*’ ‬since once in a while I BoP someone by mistake,* ‬or at an expected time.* ‬And yes,* ‬it’s BoP,* ‬for Blessing of Protection,* ‬because that’s what it used to be.* ‬Salv doesn’t get that treatment because the whole mechanic of Salvation has changed.* ‬Alas for the days that Salv was a* ‬30* ‬minute buff.* ‬Anyway*… ‬BoP makes its target immune to PHYSICAL damage* (‬dropping aggro immediately*)‬,* ‬an important distinction on much trash and the occasional boss,* ‬and is most often used to save dps* (‬or healers*) ‬on trash* (‬or,* ‬if your reaction time is amazing,* ‬on a boss*) ‬when they screw up and pull aggro* (‬thus,* ‬shame on them for pulling aggro,* ‬and glory to you for saving their ass*)‬.* ‬You can also use it to force a tank rotation if two tanks are keeping high threat* (‬example:* ‬saving Iammoo when he gets Thorim’s Unbalancing Strike and the next tank’s taunt is resisted*; ‬but,* ‬that tank is* ‬#2* ‬on the aggro list,* ‬so BoPping Moo will save him while automatically giving the boss to the second tank*) ‬but it’s unwise to do this unless the tanks are expecting this,* ‬for everyone will see BoP on a tank and yell at you,* ‬not realizing the brilliance of your strategy.* ‬If you BoP a tank by accident* (‬typically resulting in the immediate death of at least a couple dps*)‬,* ‬you deserve to be yelled at,* ‬but after being honest and owning up to your mistake,* ‬politely remind the raid that you save someone with BoP practically once a pull,* ‬and only BoP a tank once every couple of months.* ‬Make sure you don’t screw up more often than that.* Wink

Hand of Freedom* – ‬This little oddity may see the day where it’s critically important to cast during some encounter,* ‬freeing its target of all movement-restricting problems,* ‬but it hasn’t happened yet.* ‬I have never cast this during a raid,* ‬although I can think of a couple of times that I could have chosen to.* ‬It just never mattered enough at the time for me to care to stop healing someone.

The Blessings
Wisdom* – ‬You’ll always have Improved Wisdom,* ‬so you’ll often be buffing it on the raid.* ‬If you’re assigned to buff warriors/rogues/deathknights with it on PallyPower,* ‬don’t.* ‬Imp Wisdom is better than Mana Tide,* ‬freeing up a totem on shamans predisposed to using it otherwise.
Might* – ‬Depending on your spec,* ‬you may have Improved Might.* ‬Don’t buff it on anyone for whom it doesn’t make sense either. If there aren't enough paladins to get all the buffs out and you're handling wisdom and might at the same time, enhancement shamans, feral druids, prot/ret paladins and certain hunters will love you if you give them ten minute Might once the rest of their class has received thirty minute Wisdom. There is a way in PallyPower to set this up automatically.
Kings* – ‬At long last,* ‬we all have effectively Improved Kings.* ‬Freaking finally.* ‬This is the most valuable of the blessings virtually all the time,* ‬so if someone dies and gets battle rezzed in the middle of a fight,* ‬taking a second to buff them with* ‬10* ‬minute kings is an incredibly useful thing to do.
Sanctuary* – ‬I cannot think of a reason to give up Beacon of Light for Blessing of Sanctuary,* ‬and would never do so unless it had to do with a specific fight’s mechanics where we really needed the damage mitigation,* ‬had no prot paladin,* ‬and Beacon was worthless,* ‬and then only for that one fight.* Like Hard Mode General Vezax. ‬Warrior tanks love BoSanc,* ‘‬cuz it gives them stupid amounts of rage.

The Judgments
On the assumption that there are at least two paladins in your raid,* ‬there manifest three separate goals to organizing who’s judging what:
1. Ensuring that the paladin with the most powerful version of Judgment of Light,* ‬which scales with spellpower,* ‬is judging Light*; ‬this is usually a ret pally,* ‬so even though it would buff us on the healing meters to an absurd degree,* ‬let them do it for the good of the raid.* ‬Wisdom and Justice don’t scale this way,* ‬so don’t worry about them.
2. Ensuring that the special debuffs on the boss reliant on judgment don’t get overwritten.* ‬The biggie here is if you have a prot paladin*; ‬every time they judge,* ‬their Judgment of the Just REDUCES THE MELEE ATTACK SPEED OF THEIR TARGET* (‬the boss*) ‬by* ‬10%.* ‬Not only is this awesome for directly obvious reasons,* ‬but it causes the boss to be considered snared,* ‬which drastically increases the dps of certain dps talent specs.* ‬If the protadin judges wisdom,* ‬and then three seconds later you judge wisdom,* ‬the Judgment of the Just goes away*! ‬Don’t let this happen.* ‬Ideally,* ‬they can have* ‬100%* ‬uptime on their JotJ. If you don't have Heart of the Crusader, your retadin buddy does, and you don't want to overwrite that either. Let a Totem of Wrath do that for you instead...
3. Ensuring that Wisdom has as close to a* ‬100%* ‬uptime as possible,* ‬since many caster dps are reliant on it for their mana management.

Healadins value judgments because of a different talent,* ‬Judgments of the Pure,* ‬which give you a whopping* ‬15%* ‬haste rating buff for a minute every time you judge* (‬which is IMPORTANT* – ‬as you run to your position after the pull,* ‬judge, always*)‬.* The haste‬ isn’t overwritten by other peoples*’ ‬judgments,* ‬since you’re buffing yourself,* ‬not debuffing the boss,* ‬but since you don’t have the debuff talent yourself,* ‬you can overwrite other people’s.* ‬This means you only NEED to judge once a minute*; ‬if you’re judging wisdom,* ‬you’ll have to judge more often.* ‬Therefore,* ‬if you have* ‬1+* ‬of each kind of paladin in a raid,* ‬you want to organize the judgments as follows:* ‬Protadins* – ‬Wisdom*; ‬Retadins* – ‬Light*; ‬Healadins* – ‬Justice.* ‬Yes,* ‬Justice*; ‬nobody cares if it falls off,* ‬it won’t overwrite JotJ,* ‬and the retadins*’ ‬Light is better than ours.* ‬If you only have two of three,* ‬obviously make sure Light and Wisdom are covered.* If you must face the gazebo alone, the choice between Light and Wisdom really depends on the makeup of your raid. Analyze, then act.


3. Tools of the Trade - Talents and the specs that use them:

The Holy Tree:
Seals of the Pure: DPS? Duck.
Spiritual Focus: No more pushback when you take raid damage? GOOSE!
Healing Light: Improves all three of your direct healing spells by a significant percentage? GOOSE!
Divine Intellect: More Intellect? GOOSE!
Unyielding Faith: Shamans are for reducing fear durations and disorient is uncommon. Duck.
Aura Mastery: ...gosling. Conventional paladin wisdom pushes this baby into the PvP dustbin, but I find it to be among the more dynamic, fun, useful talents we have. I have blown Aura Mastery, preventing many thousands of points of raid damage, at critical moments on Leviathan (flame turrets on the dps standing on him), Razorscale (idiots in fire; also tanks in fire at the end), Ignis (scorch, slag pot), Auriaya (void zone under the raid), Hodir (frozen blows), Thorim (fire in the hallway, frost on hard mode), Freya (fire after Detonating Lashers are under 30%) and Mimiron (fire early and often), and that's damn good utility. Remember that you can switch around auras in the middle of a fight, if you can spare the attention, which is a really great reason to make someone else run Devotion, so it'll be up all the time.
Illumination: The foundation of a healadin's mana regeneration. GOOSE!
Improved Lay on Hands: Turns a panic button heal into a Shield Wall. GOOSE!
Improved Concentration Aura: Who doesn't have talents to ignore pushback from interrupt, anyway? Duck.
Blessed Hands: We don't care enough about Salv, or cast Salv and Sac often enough, to invest points into this. Duck.
Improved Blessing of Wisdom: We're the only paladins who find this talent. It's up to us. GOOSE!
Pure of Heart: Who the **** cares how long debuffs last when you cleanse them as soon as they appear? Has the side effect of giving the mages, not notorious for their fast decursing times, LESS time to cleanse the curse of doom before it does 20k damage to you. Duck.
Divine Favor: An auto-crit simply too finicky to keep track of without macroing it to something else like Holy Shock, since whenever you really NEED a crit, you don't have time to remember to use Divine Favor. Mostly useful as a prerequisite. GOOSE!
Sanctified Light: More crit, all day, every day. GOOSE!
Purifying Power: You'll never Cleanse enough for the mana cost to matter (and if you are, that's all you're doing, you'll never have time to heal) and the rest is irrelevant. Duck.
Holy Power: Even MORE crit, all day, every day. GOOSE!
Light's Grace: Critically important to bring Holy Light's casting time down from 'uselessly slow' to 'almost as fast as Flash of Light'. GOOSE!
Holy Shock: One of our three healing spells. GOOSE!
Blessed Life: Cute, but there will always be better homes for those precious points. Don't the protadins wish that talent wasn't quite so deep in our tree. Duck.
Sacred Cleansing: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! ...Duck.
Holy Guidance: And now, intellect gives you spellpower, as well as mana and crit! GOOSE!
Divine Illumination: Mana management on a 3m cooldown. Handy. GOOSE!
Judgments of the Pure: Haste... my preccccious haste. GOOSE!
Infusion of Light: What happens after Holy Shock crits. Fun for the whole family. Used to be much better, but then they gave Holy Light's reduced casting time to the priests instead. Dammit. Oh well... GOOSE!
Enlightened Judgments: You have to judge once a minute anyway, and having a 40 yard range makes positioning incredibly easy. Time spent running in is time spent not healing. Missed judgments don't proc haste, so that aspect of the talent is also worthwhile (and your ONLY source of hit). GOOSE... though if you're running low on talents, one point is enough.
Beacon of Light: Allows you to be two places at once. GOOSE!

The Retribution Tree:
Deflection: Parry... I think not. Duck.
Benediction: Beacon's an instant, Holy Shock's an instant, Sacred Shield's an instant, Cleanse is an instant, Flash of Light is occasionally instant, all of these benefit. GOOSE!
Improved Judgments: Important for protadins, important for retadins, pointless for us. Duck.
Heart of the Crusader: Give your dps crit; goose, but only to advance to the next tier.
Improved Might: Also only good to get to the next gear, but handy to have around. Goose.
Vindication: Duck.
Seal of Command: Even retadins duck this one.
Pursuit of Justice: One point in this is handy, but equally well-served by a boot enchant. Duck.
Conviction: Why you invest in the retribution tree: yet more crit. You've paid your dues to get to this tier; time for the payoff. GOOSE!
Eye for an Eye: Makes the world go blind. Duck.
Crusade: Duck.
Sanctity of Battle: Needz more critz. GOOSE, and as far down ret as you'll ever go.

[kaelzen07]

The Protection Tree:
Divine Strength: Duck.
Divinity: This talent was invented PURELY to tempt us into going for Divine Sacrifice, and it's... meh. When you consider that it's 5 talent points for 5% healing when you get 12% healing for three points from Healing Light, well, meh. Not very tempting, but if you really need Divine Sac, it's like a payoff from Blizzard to apologize for putting it in protection. A cheap payoff. Goose. *mutter*
Guardian's Favor: BoP more often, mock more often. Used to be a mandatory healadin talent, but that was a long time ago. GOOSE if you're going for Divine Sac.
Stoicism: If you're on your way to Divine Sacrifice, you have to put some points somewhere OTHER than Guardian's Favor, and I actually think Stoicism is a good choice; the stuns in boss encounters that are raidwide are often pretty long, and the fractions of a second you get to start healing the tank who's been eating hits the whole time are valuable. GOOSE!
Anticipation: Better enunciated in Rocky Horror than by you, who anticipates with napalm. Duck.
Divine Sacrifice: Raidwide Hand of Sacrifice, though keep in mind that it maxes out at 150% of your hit points, just like the single-target version, so if you have 20k hp and you're in a 25-man raid, that's barely a thousand saved per person, which is why I'm pretty meh. Goose, but only very occasionally, like on Vezax hard mode. And that's as far as you go, though Divine Guardian right underneath it is a tempting target. Imp Devotion is next to it, too, but the Trees (and prot pallies) have that covered, and there's ALWAYS a Tree.

The Three Viable Specs:
1. Crit-tastic: My favorite spec is 52/1/18, getting the 8% crit from retribution, 1% healing from protection, AND Aura Mastery, AND two points in Enlightened Judgments.
2. Divinity: If you take 3% crit out of retribution and find a point to spare in Holy, you increase that 1% healing to 5%. Personally, I find 1% crit far more compelling than 1% healing on a point-for-point basis, since more crit means more healing on average, plus mana back, plus burst viability, but 51/5/15 is very popular.
3. Divine Sacrifice: If you must have that talent, 52/14/5 is the way to play. You've lost all 8% crit now. You can keep going to Divine Guardian by taking points out of Benediction, if you figure your spec is all screwed up anyway to get to Divine Sac, so you might as well make it a really GOOD Divine Sac. Pick up Imp Righteous Fury on the way and give your tank anxiety attacks. If somehow there are no Trees or Protadins, have expensive instant cast heals and scrounge up a point in Holy and get, begrudgingly, the aura; 11% more healing against 8% crit is at least a slightly more interesting matchup, if still a dubious trade, and at least you're doing the Tree aura impression for the rest of the healing team.

4. Tools of the Trade - Mana Management Strategies

This section is probably going to be invalidated in 3.2; the writing is on the wall, the devs are ****ing with us. When I've updated it accordingly once they tell us what the dropping shoe actually IS, mechanically, I'll remove this message.

Healadins currently snub the mana-per-5-seconds stat, unless it's a /really/ good deal and they don't have to give something up for it (like Blessing of Wisdom or Divine Spirit). In other words, we'll /take/ it if it's handed to us, but we don't go looking for it otherwise. Compared to the rest of the healing world, this is really weird. Pretty much everyone else on the crew relies on mp5, popping it like junkies. They use the stat for a steady infusion of mana over the course of the entire fight, getting more back while they're casting than we do when we're not. What's going on here?

Illumination.

THE primary means of regaining mana for a healadin is to crit. Any critical heal refunds 60% of its base cost. Suddenly all our spells are really cheap, and we don't -need- mana-per-5 as its own separate item stat because as long as we start with a big enough pool, we'll never run out of mana. Instead, we stack for crit obsessively, and enjoy both the normal bursty benefit as well as it being our version of mp5. Considering the roughly 20% of crit we get from talents, Blizzard seems to be pointing us that direction as well.

Let me repeat the Illumination statement: Any critical heal refunds 60% of its base cost. That means that the other healadin trick is to stack items and effects that reduce the cost of our spells from the outset; once we crit and get the refund, the mana back is based on the original, undiscounted value of the spell, so we actually get quite a bit more than 60% back if we use this strategy. Some good places to do this are:

The Glyph of Seal of Wisdom (5% mana cost reduction), the T7 4-piece set bonus (5% holy light mana cost reduction), the Spark of Hope (Kologarn trinket, reduces mana costs by up to a set value), the Heroism badge libram (reduces holy light costs by a set value). Stack these suckers, and you'll never go hungry again.

We have some other tricks as well.
A) Seal/Judgment of Wisdom - Since you'll be using the Seal of Wisdom anyway for the mana cost reduction, and since some paladin is keeping uptime on the judgment on the boss, every white hit on the boss between casts is a major source of mana. If you have ten seconds and a fast weapon, you can practically refill your bar. Even if you're just waiting for someone to get hit, you'll find that the second between casts will give you back quite a bit of juice. It therefore behooves you to stand with the melee WHENEVER REASONABLE (which sadly isn't always; sometimes you'll have to be back with the rest of the team, who have wands) and have auto-attack on (which you will, since you're judging once a minute).
B) Divine Illumination - My whole spiel about cheapening initial mana costs, then getting the 60% of the full value back, is doubly cool whenever you blow this cooldown, reducing the mana cost of your spells by half for a few seconds. Use this whenever you're going to spam a lot of heals, and don't let it sit off cooldown for too long.
C) Arcane Torrent - We're all blood elves here in the Horde, and our racial is like a mana pot on a 2 minute cooldown. Use it every time it's up.
D) Mana Potions - You only get one of these a fight; on many fights, you'll never need it. Save it for when all your other options are on cooldown.
E) Divine Plea - This one's a little complicated, and has to be managed properly. 25% of your mana back over 12 seconds on a 1 minute cooldown is completely insane. Unfortunately, Blizzard realized this and added a 50% healing reduction over the 12 seconds that your mana bar is imitating a mage's Evocate. That makes most of your heals completely unworthwhile, and mana you might spend to cast them while Divine Plea is up a waste of your Divine Plea. There are two ways to avoid this: 1. Only blow Divine Plea when you don't need to cast any heals (bonus points if you auto-attack during this period as well), during a predictable lull in the fight, like a transition between encounter phases. 2. Once every three minutes, you have Avenging Wrath, which increases your damage and healing by 20%. Macro it with Divine Plea, and use it whenever Avenging Wrath is up, as long as it isn't a moment of known, particularly bursty damage on the tank. Then you can keep healing, you don't have to take a 12 second break. If your role on the healing team is so unimportant that you can blow DP on cooldown, giving you 50% healing loss for 1/5 of the fight, you're a waste of a raiding slot. Ask to be reassigned to a more useful role.


5. Gear

A) Itemization Theory (or: what stats matter and why?)

I'm not going to give you a list of best in slot gear to pick up, because I'd have to update it all the time as new content came out, and besides, the point of this guide isn't to browbeat you into listening to me, it's to educate you on the facts so you can think for yourself and make informed decisions. Gearing up is as important a part of your strategy as anything, since your gear dictates what you're actually capable of doing in the actual fights.

Now that you've read my Mana Management section, you might think Crit is the most important stat, but you'd be wrong. It's number two. Numero Uno, the Big Kahuna of paladin stats, belongs to Intellect. Let's borrow from ElitistJerks' numbers and see what 100 Intellect from gear gives you:

* 126.5 Intellect, with BoK and Divine Intellect
* 1897 Mana at the start of the fight
* 39.5mp5 from Divine Plea, if its used on CD.
* 21.3mp5 from Replenishment, with 90% uptime.
* 4.7mp5 from Arcane Torrent, if you are a Blood Elf.
* 25.3 Spell Power
* 0.759% Spell Crit

So Intellect gives you maximum mana (which is good for what it is, plus Divine Plea takes it into its 25% back calculation), AND spellpower, AND crit. Care about it.

Crit is number two, and nice because it doesn't suffer from diminishing returns; quite the opposite, actually. The more often you crit, the more mana you get back to cast more spells that can crit. Know it, love it, stack it.

Haste is also important, because without it, our heals are really really slow. Unusably slow. The faster your Holy Lights are, the better the odds they'll reach the tank in time. (Of course, the faster your Holy Lights are, the lower the odds that the tank is going to get hit while you're casting one, but it's still worth it.) Haste does give you diminishing returns (the higher haste rating you have, the less you're getting out of each point) but that doesn't make it a bad investment. There are a lot of haste buffs in a 25-man raid floating around. According to ElitistJerks, you need 20.6% haste from gear to get soft capped (50%, for 1 second global cooldowns).

Spellpower is obviously important, and I would have put it above haste, except that there's always spellpower on all your gear, so it's only a consideration in a relative sense. More spellpower = bigger heals = better. If you actually needed that explained to you, your membership heralds a dark day for the guild. Perhaps more constructively, I'd say that once you have a lot of haste, it's okay to take an upgrade with significantly more spellpower but a little less haste.

MP5 we snub. Snubsnubsnub. Only pick up an item wasting points on it if you've had very bad luck with drops on better itemized gear (or for a set bonus).

To summarize, the stats to consider when you're looking at gear are, in order of importance: Int/Crit/Haste/Spellpower/mp5. A properly itemized piece of gear has less stamina than intellect, spellpower, crit and haste. If you have to pick up a piece with mp5, make sure it's replacing the haste, not the crit. You want crit on practically everything.

B) Gemming

Look up a paragraph and what gems we use should be immediately obvious: Intellect, intellect, intellect. Brilliant Autumn's Glows are currently the gem of choice. The only interesting question becomes how to activate your meta gem, which, by the way, is the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond. Accept no substitutes; the proc will be feeding you mana until it's coming out of your ears, and it has intellect too. It requires a red, a yellow, and a blue. You've got yellow covered.

Use an orange (spellpower/intellect) and a green (mp5/intellect); try to line these up to activate some non-yellow socket bonuses, preferably on two different pieces of gear, so you get two separate bonuses.

C) Glyphs

Major Glyphs
I've already talked up the Glyph of the Seal of Wisdom in my Mana Management Strategy. It has a cousin, the Glyph of the Seal of Light, that increases your heals by 5% (it's like five talent points in Divinity, yet another example of why that talent is a lousy deal). If you never ever have mana problems, you could make the swap, but remember that you'll also be getting less mana back from auto-attacks. Don't test whether or not you can use the Seal of Light glyph on a progression night.
The Glyph of Holy Light turns Holy Light into an AoE. Don't miss it, whether you're napalm or technical, since it lets you heal the raid while healing the tank, or else heal the raid while you heal the raid.
The Glyph of Divinity improves the amount of mana your Lay on Hands grants someone, and grants it to you as well. I'm a fan. However, if you use Holy Shock on cooldown and feel that it's more important than LoH to your style over the course of a fight, and if somehow your mana management is still sound despite all these Holy Shocks, you could reduce its cooldown by a second with the Glyph of Holy Shock instead. If you use Flash of Light to a great degree, improving its crit chance with its glyph is a worthwhile proposition.
There are a few other major glyphs, but they suck, including the new one which improves Beacon's duration.

Minor Glyphs
Glyph of Lay on Hands reduces its cooldown, use it. Glyph of the Wise mattered back when Seals were on a two minute cooldown rather than a thirty minute cooldown. The other minor glyphs increase the duration on 10 minute blessings whenever you cast them on yourself, useful while soloing.

D) Tier Gear

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU, Tier 8!

Okay, now that that's out of my system, this section is designed to discuss the set bonuses on Wrath tier gear, and whether or not it's worth breaking your rules on itemization priority to achieve them. You may have some idea of where I'm going with this from the first line.

Tier 8's only defense is that Tier 7's set bonuses are amazing. The 2-piece bonus increases Holy Shock's crit chance by a whopping 10%, and since Holy Shock crits are especially awesome, this is really nice. The 4-piece bonus acts like another Glyph of the Seal of Wisdom on Holy Light, reducing its cost by 5%, which really can't be overestimated. This bonus is so good, they'll probably nerf it just to force us to pick up Tier 9.

However, there's plenty of suck to go around on the Tier 8 bonuses without hiding behind the burning light of awesome that Tier 7's emit. The 2-piece bonus adds another extra feature to a Holy Shock critical strike, a HoT. But wait, you protest, this is a big deal! A HoT is one of the big things healadins DON'T have! Shouldn't we be excited to finally have access to one?

The trouble is, that first of all, the HoT is so piddly small that it makes level 60 druids snicker, and second, more importantly, it's UNCONTROLLABLE. What makes HoTs excellent are their predictability, using them when they're needed, or when they're going to be needed. A randomly proccing HoT will be a total waste most of the time.

The 4-piece bonus increases how often Sacred Shield can proc, bringing the time down from 6 seconds to 4 seconds. Now that you know how SS works, you can figure out what it means when SS is on a tank; on fights where the tank is being hit roughly twice every 4 seconds, they'll get more damage prevented. Of course, when the tank is being hit twice every 4 seconds by an Ulduar boss, that means that they're getting the BAJEEZUS kicked out of them, and they'd better have mitigation from more than just our 4-piece bonus or else their ass is grass, and we're going to be spamming Holy Lights on them to keep them alive anyway. Guess which bonus makes that possible? T7.5 4-piece for $500, Alex.

E) Librams

The only libram worth having is the Libram of Renewal, from Heroism badges. Farm some heroics if you don't have it, and shake your fist at Blizzard for not giving us a single upgrade from Valor or Conqueror badges, or from drops. If you're so technical that you actively avoid Holy Light in favor of Flash to never overheal, the PvP Librams are an option, but you aren't that technical, and the priests and druids are going to beat you to that damage with their HoTs anyway.

F) Trinkets

Just as a side note on trinkets, which can be sometimes difficult to choose from, since they aren't itemized quite as straightforwardly as everything else -- my opinion is that an intentionally activated trinket is always more useful than a proc, unless the proc is giving back mana, as long as you can spare the attention to activate the trinket often enough to make it worthwhile. What good are superpowered or superspeedy heals when the proc turns up at that moment when nobody needs one? That said, sometimes there are no great use-activated trinkets, and some really nice procs, so. Find what you can find.

G) Consumables

Pack mana pots and Flasks of the Frost Wyrm. If you're going to take the mp5 flask over the spellpower one, you deserve the mocking coming to you. If you're going to show up without flasks and mana pots, don't be in this guild. If you're extra tricky, bring a few Elixirs of Mighty Thoughts for those last couple of attempts when there's only 10 minutes left in the raid and your flask has just expired.


6. Conclusion, and musings on the future

It's a funny time to be a healadin, knowing that the devs are planning to drastically change our mana management strategy (again), but are uninterested in telling us how (presumably because they don't want to deal with the incoming, justified rage). We aren't OP, and don't let anyone else tell you so -- we're just very good at what we do. And we're very good at what we do because there's one other tool that isn't a major part of our arsenal, that every other healer enjoys in one way or another: 'smart heals'. Other than the Glyph of Holy Light, which is a very small effect, we don't have any auto-targeting, damage-prioritizing heals like the rest of the team. We have to actively target, prioritize and react on our own instead of letting the computer do it for us; we have to judge what's the right decision at any given moment, and it's always momentous, because our spells are so slow that once we've committed to a choice, there won't be time to change our minds. In other words, instead of using smart heals, we have to be smart healers.

I like it that way.

Be smart. Remember that your most powerful healing tool is your mind.

[fearedtoast]

Wow, this actually looks 100% original. I am amazed.

+Rep from me!

[holydevil33]

thank you.. it helped +rep

EDIT: and gz on getting out of leecher

[Scr4t]

My pally hit 80 last night and this was a Huge help thanks +rep

[Tyrune]

I remember raiding back in TBC as a Paladin. He's still 70, I've got a Priest as my main now.

Here's a quick guide for people who are on the run:

Flash of light, flash of light, flash of light.

Enjoy.

But seriously though, that's one of the most in-depth guides WoW related guides I've ever read, probably THE most in-depth. Truthfully, I found Paladin healing by far the easiest, but this would be great for people who are really hardcore and want to be as efficient as they can be. Nice work!

[lolnej7]

Flash of light, flash of light, flash of light.

Holy Light, Holy LightHoly Light, Holy LightHoly Light, Holy LightHoly Light, Holy LightHoly Light, Holy LightHoly Light, Holy LightHoly Light, Holy LightHoly Light, Holy LightHoly Light, Holy LightHoly Light, Holy LightHoly Light, Holy LightHoly Light, Holy LightHoly Light, Holy LightHoly Light, Holy LightHoly Light, Holy Light. repeat

[kaelzen07]

I remember raiding back in TBC as a Paladin. He's still 70, I've got a Priest as my main now.

Here's a quick guide for people who are on the run:

Flash of light, flash of light, flash of light.

Enjoy.

But seriously though, that's one of the most in-depth guides WoW related guides I've ever read, probably THE most in-depth. Truthfully, I found Paladin healing by far the easiest, but this would be great for people who are really hardcore and want to be as efficient as they can be. Nice work!

Yeah, TBC was great, FoL everyone lol. But thats changed now, unfortunately.
Thanks guys for all your help on getting me out of leecher! Glad my guide could help you all!

[amunro]

Nice effort, but tbh, i just use healbot, and thats all u really need to know..... +2 rep