Holy Paladin PvE Guide
(This guide was created by Kaniget of the Paladin Forums. All credit goes to him. To see the original post click here. Also this link is the link where you will always be able to find the most updated version of this guide.)
So it's been a while and I've just gotten back into WoW and figured this thing could use some updates. Fortunately I have most of next week off of work and will be able to work on this some. Please leave any suggestions or strategies if you would like to help out with the 3.2 edition.
With the amount of questions, and the fact that people don't like to follow links, I figured it was high time it was put together in one spot.
Constructive criticism appreciated.
Contents:
1.HPAL 101, intro to healadins
2.Holy talents batman!
3.From HL to SS; your arsenal
4.Addons, you know you want 'em
5.Functionality; what stats do you need?
6.Fashion; what to wear, gems/chants
7. Advanced Techniques; Holy in raids
8. Best in Slot and further reading
1. HPAL 101, intro to healadins
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. Holy talents batman!
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
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, but so does your overhealing.
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 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.
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 2
Cookie Cutter Holy/Prot Build 2
Major Glyphs;
-Holy Light
-Seal of Light or Seal of Wisdom
-Chose one: Holy Shock/Beacon/Divinity/Flash of Light
Minor Glyphs;
-Blessing of Wisdom
-Lay on Hands
-Blessing of Kings
3. From HL to SS, your arsenal
Holy Light
Your standby. If you need to recover from an 8k hit, HL. If the tank is taking damage fast, HL. The only real strategy you need with this ability is to keep Light's Grace up in combat. That reduced cast time is miraculous. Infusion of Light procs used on HL aren't as amazing as they were pre-3.1, but they can improve mana efficiency (and a 13k heal is fun too!). This will probably be a big chunk of the healing you do. Great in raids and bosses, not needed as much in Heroics.
Flash of Light
Holy Light's right hand man. Cheaper, faster, and more efficient, 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. Great for Heroics, not needed as much in raids and bosses.
Holy Shock
As the only actual instant heal, this spell is highly useful when you must move to avoid fire, etc.
As of 3.0, it heals for significantly more, and with the ability to proc IoL, this could easily account for 10%+ of your healing. Don't be afraid to use it if you need to get the tank back up fast, and don't underestimate this spell.
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. No, it won't actually double your healing output (it doesn't transfer overhealing), but it will save your butt more times than you can count, especially in five mans. A general rule of thumb in five's is to have this on the tank, so if you have to heal someone else the tank doesn't get left out. In raids you can be a bit more flexible with this spell, using it on the MT, OT, or even yourself. An interesting trick in raids with 2 Holy Paladins; Each Holy Paladin puts Beacon on one tank, then heals the other. The amount of healing the tanks will receive from this is incredible.
Sacred Shield
Nerf or no, this is the closest thing paladins have to a HoT. 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 FoL crit bonus. 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, as crit heals will actually restore more mana than drained!
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 (as of 3.1 I like to go with the instant FoL, followed by a regular HL if still needed.).
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.
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. An extra 100mp5 is not bad. Kings is an equally good choice, especially if you have a mage in the group providing the Intellect buff. 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 and Kings, 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. In fact, you should be keeping your judgements active on bosses at all times. Make sure however that a Ret paladin judges light, as theirs actually heals for more than yours because it scales with AP.
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, you know you want 'em
Alright, let me be first to say that these are not in any way necessary. They do make life easier though.
Lots of players use addons for healing, simply because the basic UI isn't very helpful when it comes to keeping watch on the group, monitoring debuffs, switching friendly targets, etc. I won't go into detail of them here (most are pretty easy to figure out), but I will list what is popular and useful.
First, basic health and healing addons. These watch your groups health and allow you to target and heal them easily. Some options are;
-Healbot
-Grid in combination with Clique
-Pitbull
Other useful addons like Decursive help you monitor debuffs and dispel them (some of the above do this too, not as well though). If you want to watch Beacon, SS, and Judgement, DoTimers can help with that.
A threat meter may be nice (Omen, Diamond Threat Meter), but aren't totally necessary for a healer, made mostly for dps and tanks.
Pally Power is useful for keeping blessings organized with more than one paladin in the group.
Lastly, everyone that does heroics and raids should have Deadly Boss Mods. No question about it.
5.Functionality; what stats do you need?
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 and Crit
It's not really that easy to pick one over the other in this case, as they are both highly important. SP will increase the amount your spells heal for, while crit will obviously grant stronger heals in some cases, but more importantly it will trigger Illumination, restoring mana. If you have to make a sacrifice of one for the other, the decision is in your hands. Just remember (this is the cause of much debate for Holy Paladins), do you want better mana-conservation or more powerful heals on average?
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.
Mana per 5
Paladins recover most of their mana from crits and divine plea, so MP5 isn't a truly vital stat. It can't hurt though, and just because an upgrade has this, there is no reason to turn it down.
Non-plate gear
Now, one last note about gear. Holy Paladins are the only spec that require Spell Plate. While on one hand, it means no one will roll against you, it also means that there is relatively little of it compared to other armor types. In general, never roll against a clothie for cloth, or a shaman for mail, but if it's an upgrade, and no one else is there to claim it, there's no reason not to take it. In other words, cloth Paladins are OK
6.Fashion; what to wear, gems/chants
So now that you know the tactics and stats you still need to know if you are ready. There aren't any real hard numbers here, but there is a point you can reach without ever stepping foot in a heroic.
Some good stats to look for are at least 14k mana, 1.4k SP, and around 25% Holy crit (counting Holy Power, not Sanctified Light).
Also, don't be fooled by the Brilliant Saronite gear. The lack of Intellect on it makes it very weak.
Gems & Enchants
When gemming, always go for Intellect first, Crit or SP second. For Meta gems, there's only one option: Insightful Earthsiege Diamond.
Enchants, like gems, should always go to Int first if possible. Here are the best available. If you cant afford these, there are lesser versions of most available.
Head - Arcanum of Burning Mysteries
Shoulders - Greater Inscription of the Storm
Chest - Powerful Stats
Waist - Eternal belt buckle
Legs - Sapphire Spell Thread
Boots - Icewalker
Bracers - Exceptional Intellect
Gloves - Exceptional Spellpower
Cloak - Greater Speed
Weapon - Mighty Spellpower
Shield - Greater Intellect
Pre-Heroic gear
All of the following can be found on the AH, from quests, from faction vendors, or from regular 5 man instances. This is only showing blue gear, but there are some epics you can get without doing heroics (craftables and reputation rewards mostly).
Head
Platehelm of Irate Revenge
Crown of Forgotten Kings
Brighthelm of Guarding
Shoulders
Pauldrons of Morbidus
Pauldrons of Extinguished Hatred
Spaulders of Ichoron
Chest
Eregos' Ornamented Chestguard
Besieging Breastplate
Chestplate of the Northern Lights
Waist
Girdle of the Warrior Magi
Ionar's Girdle
Crawler-Emblem Belt
Wrist
Bracers of Accorded Courtesy
Bands of Fading Light
Hands
Gauntlets of Mending Touch (horde)
Gauntlets of Shattered Pride (alliance)
Aura Focused Gauntlets
Legs
Discarded Titanium Legplates
Standard Issue Legguards
Dalaran Warden's Legplates
Feet
Slippers of the Mojo Dojo
Harpooner's Striders
Greaves of the Blue Flight
Rings
Ring of Temerity
Newt-Eye Ring
Signet of Ranulf
Raine's Signet of Blasting
Neck
Chain of Fiery Orbs
Choker of Betrayal
Crystal Pendant of Warding
Trinkets
Soul Preserver
Cannoneer's Fuselighter
Medallion of Heroism
Tome of Arcane Phenomena
Weapons
Titansteel Guardian (only purple I am putting in here, it's expensive)
Gavel of the Brewing Storm
Beguiling Scepter
Gavel of the Fleshcrafter
Hammer of Wrenching Change
Shields
Bulwark of Redemption
Tharon'ja's Aegis
Tor's Crest
Lordaeron's Resolve (alliance)
Warsong Stormshield (horde)
Librams
Venture Co. Libram of Mostly Holy Deeds
Blessed Book of Nagrand
Libram of Furious Blows
7. Advanced Techniques; Holy in raids
So you're not a complete noob healer. You've done every 5-man, are decked out in purples, and laugh at Heroic Loken. What now? Time for raids!
In raids things get a little different. The content becomes harder (for the most part), and you will have to put up with at least twice as many idiots. No, just kidding. Getting a big group of people together is part of the fun in raids! This isn't a guide to specific encounters, but general strategy and how raids change the role of healing.
Now, remember that part I said about paladins being single target healers? That's where we shine in raids. Your job will be to keep the tank up, and only the tank (well, maybe the OT too). Don't worry about the rest of the group, that's why you bring resto druids and shamans.
If we talk raids we have to mention heal snipes. With the addition of other healers, you may end up stepping on each others toes and heal the same target, even with addons that show incoming heals. This is why Beacon becomes less reliable in raids, even if you are targeting someone with a bigger health deficit than the tank, another healer may jump on them and get a heal off before you do. This means you overheal them, and the tank doesn't get healed at all (bad).
Because of this, you will be sticking primarily to healing one or two targest, and leaving the group to another healer or two. So tanks ahoy!
Once your in a raid, you will go buff crazy. Being able to have buffs from every class will dramatically increase your stats, especially your mana, crit, and haste. This allows you to do something very very powerful: Holy Light Spamming
HL Spamming generally only works in raids, as it requires high mana and regen (read "crit"). With good gear, you can easily reach 23k mana and 40% holy crit in 10 mans, even higher in 25's. So, we have just one target taking lots of damage, and tons of mana and crit to keep him alive. You can spam HL until your eyes fall out, and even after 5 minutes you won't go oom. Throw in Divine Plea when you can, and don't be shy about using your cooldowns, and you will forget you have a mana bar.
Now, as for whom to beacon, this is once again a "feel for it" issue. The tank may not be the best option, since you will be healing him 95% of the time. Instead, using it on yourself can ease the burden on other healers, and ensure you don't go down (with Spiritual Attunment in deep Prot this more viable than ever). If that isn't a concern, the offtank is another prime choice for obvious reasons. Likely you will be required to heal him as well if there is no other Holy paladin (more likely in 10's, probably not in 25's).
Sacred Shield should still be on the tank, but it will likely be consumed in one hit, and you won't be using FoL as much. Still, it provides good mitigation for the low mana cost. If your tank is a paladin, ask him if he will SS himself. The difference in the amount absorbed won't be too drastic, and it will allow you to cover the other tank or yourself.
One last note about raid healing: Healing meters. Don't. Matter. Remeber that. What does matter is keeping the group alive.
The reason I bring this up is because Holy Paladins can face some discrimination here. With big single target heals, you will do a lot of over healing (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 to 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.
This brings me to one last piece of advice, 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.
8. Best in Slot and Ferraro's guides
The Best in Slot guide was incorrect and outdated now anyway. Besides, no one can truly say another 30 crit rating is say, better than 40 spell power or so. I'm hardly an elitist and at the same item level the differences are very minimal.
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
http://ferarro.blogspot.com/2008/11/holy-holy-batman.html
http://ferarro.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-healing-5-mans.html
http://ferarro.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-heal-raids.html