Audience

healers

Guide

Introduction
A holy paladin's primary role in a raid is simple: keep the tanks alive. That said, your job doesn't stop there. With one of the simplest and strongest dual-healing skill (Beacon of Light) available, a paladin can easily heal 2 targets at once, and this makes him a potent tank healer as well as allowing him to focus on healing raid members while keeping the tank up indirectly.

In this guide I'll present to you what I feel is the best and most effective way of gearing your holy paladin as well as what talents to get. I'll also tell you why other styles are not as favorable.

I've arranged the guide in a simple format: for those who just need something to follow, just read the start of each section. The explanation and justification is always in the second part of the section.

And lastly, I'll do a section about how to heal in raid, though IMHO healing cannot be fully taught, you need to develop an instinct for it. Nevertheless, I'll give some tips about skill usage, etc.

I'll list out the contents first, so you can just Ctrl+F to whichever section you're interested in. (e.g. you wanna read about how to gear your pally, just ctrl F '[C])

On a side note, I do want to improve how the guide looks with pictures and those 'dropdown' things for skills. (e.g. you mouseover a phrase like Beacon of Light and it tells you what the skill does) , but I don't know the code for it. If someone could teach me how it'll be great!

Contents
[X] Terminology ( GCD? HL? BoL? What's all this?)
[A] Talent Builds (which is the best?)
[Y] Holy Light vs Flash of Light – which is the better playstyle?
[C] Gearing Considerations for HL Pallies (SP? Haste? Crit? Which is my priority? Gemming?)
[D] How to heal as a Holy Pally (what's my priority in raid? What skills do I use? How do I become a better healer?)
[E] General Healing Tips
[F] Conclusion

[X] Terminology
HL – Holy Light
FoL – Flash of Light
BoL – Beacon of Light
GCD – Global Cooldown
DSac – Divine Sacrifice
HoP – Hand of Protection
HoF – Hand of Freedom
HoT – Heal over Time
SP – Spell Power
SS – Sacred Shield

[A] Talent Builds
The 2 most popular (and best) builds are the 51/5/15 and 51/20/0 builds. I usually call them the 'DSac build' and 'Crit build' for simplicity.
51/5/15 Crit Build : http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sxAzxG0sVu0tgzxZVf0x
51/20/0 Dsac Build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sxAzxG0sVu0tgzxGzmbh

Crit vs DSac
In a nutshell, the Crit build gives you 5% extra crit while Dsac build gives you the amazing skill Divine Sacrifice (Dsac for short) with 6% extra healing (from Imp Devo Aura)

For comparison, I'd ignore the second tier talents in the Ret tree since HotC can come from retadins and Improved Judgements is just pointless. (you mean you can't press JoL once every 60s? ) To be fair I'll ignore Stocism, Toughness and Guardian's Favor as well since they're pretty situational talents. (not every fight has slow/stuns, though the armor buff is nice from Toughness).

In my opinion, Dsac build is by far superior to the Crit build. Why?
Firstly, why do you want to spec something that gives you a CHANCE to crit when you have a GUARANTEED 5% more healing spec available? Theorycrafters may jump in here with all their fancy calculations, but as with all theorycraft – it is just theory. Just because you have a 50% chance to crit doesn't mean you won't go 5 casts in a row without a single crit. On the other hand, 6% increased healing is CONSTANT. You ALWAYS have it.
(You may ask: “Wait wait but it only applies for those within range of your auras! How about those out of range of your aura?”. Obvious → Aura's range is 40 yards, which is the same as your healing range. You'll never be healing someone not affected by your aura.)

Next, Divine Sacrifice is such an invaluable skill that I don't see how you can forego it. Its uses are limitless-> saving the raid in times of sudden large raid damage and your primary raid healers aren't able to keep up for some reason, pre-empting it for any major raid damage (e.g. Vortexes for Twin Valkyrs in TOTC) etc.
Even with the tweak(nerf! :( ) in how it works, the raid damage reduction is still there, so it's still a pretty imba skill.

Benediction is pretty much insignificant given that we have practically only ONE instant cast spell (holy shock). I say 'practically' because Lay on Hands is instant as well, but obviously its long cooldown makes it pointless to include in the discussion.

Lastly, I HAVE tried out the Crit build, all this isn't just theorycraft. But what I notice is that once your crit reaches the 30-40% range, the change in output is insignificant. And you'll always almost hit this range with full raid buffs, with decent gear. For example, my current Crit is 37% unbuffed, but from Recount my heals crit 50~% of the time.

The 53/18/0 build.
And a final note – for those who have armoried me, you'll notice my own personal build is actually 53/18/0, I specced 'Enlightened Judgements'.

This is obviously not for the hit, but for the improved ranged of Judgements. Any decent paladin will know he has to keep Judgements of the Pure up at all times (15% cast-time reduction = win) and I don't like being restricted by the short range of Judgements (20 yards I think) to do this.
I would rather have the freedom to move around to cover heals and not bother about how far away I am from the boss/adds/whatever. Hence I forego the 4% healing which I don't mind since the main reason for this build is to have Divine Sacrifice anyway (of course with D-guardian specced)

[Y] Holy Light vs Flash of Light
The two main playstyles of a holy pally are HL spam vs FoL spam. Both have very different gearing considerations and mentalities. This guide, however, is written for the HL style of playing, which I believe is the optimal style of holy paladin healing.

WHY?
Before I start, let's look at the pros and cons of each style, in general:
FoL:
Pros – Quick, efficient heals, No mana issues.
Cons – Low heal output, to the point where it's insufficient.
HL:
Pros – High heal output,
Cons – Mana issues, Need to have a good understanding of how to prioritize healing, otherwise the slower heals will actually result in lower output overall due to overhealing.

Now, the key comparison would be between having quicker heals or bigger heals, since issues like mana is addressed by gearing up correctly and skill is just developed.
I have personally tried both builds, and I found that the FoL build lacks the output required of a holy paladin. You must always remember that your primary job is to keep the tanks alive. Tanks are often taking large amounts of damage quickly (Impale stacks from Gormuk, Saber Lash from Lord Marrowgar, etc) , and using FoL primarily just doesn't deliver enough healing to keep the tanks up.

A simple example would be to use Algalon → for 10man he swings for 13k each melee hit. The FoL pally would take 2-3 GCDs(Global Cooldown) AT LEAST to top this up, while the HL pally just needs 1.

That aside, it's shortsighted to limit a pally to just tank healing → with BoL he can easily keep the tank(s) up while healing up the raid. With only FoL as your raid healing tool, it's often you'll find yourself falling behind in heals. A holy priest accomplishes exactly what you do in about 5 GCDs with 5 FoL in a single Holy Nova, etc. Of course, you may argue that 5 FoL will hit the 5 targets more effectively than an AOE like Holy Nova – but by the time you hit your 2nd/3rd target a resto druid's HoTs would probably have completed the job.

In a nutshell, the only way for a holy paladin to keep up with the large output healers like holy priests and resto druids is to use HL.

[C] Gearing Considerations for HL Pallies

For completion's sake, I've included a small section about gearing up FoL Pallies at the bottom of this section as well.

READ THIS
For fresh level 80s, While gearing up your holy pally, haste is INSIGNIFICANT. Why? Because you simply won't have the mana pool to support a HL spamming build. So as a general guide, until you have 232/245 ilevel gear (which is pretty easily attainable now with Emblems) , your priority is just one stat: SPELLPOWER.

What I'm covering now involves actively raiding paladins, who have access to at least 232 level gears.

There are 4 main stats that a Holy Paladin needs (in order of priority): Haste, Mana, Spell Power, Crit.
(MP5 is insignificant, if you want math for this you can go google it, many theorycrafters have already proven that Intellect >> MP5. )

Estimated ideal stats for a T9 geared pally (predominantly at least lv245 items)
Haste – 700(cap), SP – 2600, Mana – 29000, Crit – 33%

(My own stats are 745 haste, 2842 SP, 32k Mana, 37% crit with a mix of lv245-264 gear)

Your priority is to cap haste at 700. (exact number may be around 690~ ) which is when Holy Light hits its capped cast time of 1.3s with all procs/buffs. (Judgements of the Pure 15% spell haste, Light's Grace 0.5s reduction, Wrath of Air 5% increased spell haste)
(However, do NOT gem haste. It's a waste of gem slot, yellow slots are only for Intellect. )
As long as your SP is around 2400, it's fine to go and cap haste first, before improving your SP.
Mana comes from gemming Intellect. Jewelcrafters and Blacksmiths will have no problems reaching 29k mana, in fact, most of them have above 33k mana.
Crit is the least important stat among these 4, but still more important than MP5. Hence, crit>mp5.

How to gem?
Almost all of your gem slots should be filled with +20 Intellect gems. Your Meta gem should be the +21Int/chance to restore mana on cast . (once again, math has been done, go google this if you don't believe me).
And just find one item that has the best socket bonus (probably +7 SP) and requires a blue slot and use a Glowing Dreadstone (12 SP/15 Stam) for it, which will cover your Meta gem requirements.

Why do you prioritize the stats this way?
If we do not cap our haste, it is pointless going for the HL playstyle, you're probably better off playing FoL playstyle.
HL pallies NEED to cap haste to fully utilize HL. HL is already a skill with a pretty long cast time (2.xx seconds before procs) so you need to get it down as low as possible to be able to get off those HL casts before say, a tank death.

SP and Mana need to be raised together. If you have below 27k mana, I'd advise you to increase your mana pool before improving SP (e.g. use Intellect trinkets instead of SP trinkets) since it's quite difficult to support a HL playstyle with <27k mana.

On the other hand, if your SP is below 2300, don't bother getting above 27k mana yet, since you WILL still be using FoL in the HL playing style.

Gearing past item level 245 (into TOGC25/ICC)
That said, once you start gearing into ICC and above, you'll find that your gear meets all of the above stats and your stats will approach mine or even pass it. Once that happens, just maintain your haste cap while pushing up your crit and mana pool. I find that 30~k mana is quite sufficient for any fight and the only fight which I've ever OOM-ed in was Heroic Twin Valkyrs. Of course, this requires good usage of Arcane Torrent/Divine Plea, I DO see many pallies go OOM.

Your SP will naturally go up with better gear, there's no need to prioritize it. I would say to pick crit over SP for gear, though most ICC gear is between mp5 and haste so you won't have to decide between that.

And one thing to note- it's not WRONG to go above haste cap either. This is because this haste cap is actually a soft cap which only accounts for HL, it's always helpful to have more haste for FoL and even the initial cast of HL without Light's Grace active.
Hence, pick all the haste gear in ICC instead of the mp5 ones. MP5 still remains an insignificant stat, though not outright BAD to have of course, like.. Agility.

I can't think of more to write here, since I think this priority is quite well known and non-debatable. I'll write more if I receive arguments against this priority.

How about the FoL playstyle?

For those who are adamant about sticking to FoL spamming, you'll want to be gemming SP. Your priority is SP SP SP. Stack as much SP as you can ftw. After SP, probably haste, crit, then lastly, mana pool. Oh yes, having the 4pc T9 bonus would be awesome too. You can now HoT better than a druid!

But what happens when you upgrade to ICC gear and break up the T9 set? Hmmm.

[D] How to Heal

This is probably the most difficult section to write, as it is a very difficult thing to teach. I'll do my best to explain things and provide tips, but ultimately, you need practice.

Tips for Holy Pallies
For beginners, I'll just run through the main healing skills of a pally. Skip this paragraph if you've already had experience with healing as a pally.

Flash of Light – Your fast heal. Used generally when there is some raid damage taken.
Holy Light - Your slower but big heal. Used when large spikes in damage are taken.
Holy Shock - Your main instant heal. Used in emergencies, probably just before a FoL or HL. (because of Infusion of Light talent) (e.g. when there's a sudden spike in damage)
Beacon of Light – Place it on the main tank or whichever tank you're assigned to heal. Make sure it's up at all times.
Sacred Shield – Keep it up on the tank, or if you get bored and have a lot of free GCDs you can just randomly SS/FoL people to pre-HoT them.
Lay on Hands – Use in emergencies when the tank or anyone else is almost dying and still taking damage. Priority to the tanks though. Take note – this puts Forbearance on you, as of 3.3.

Holy paladins are reactive healers, probably the most so of any healing class. We have no HoTs (SS/FoL takes 2 GCDs so it's retarded to rely on this) or shields (SS doesn't count, if you compare it with a priest's shield.. it's crap) for pre-emptive healing, we have no damage reduction talents (like shaman's Ancestral Healing, Disc Priest's Divine Aegis, etc).

Hence, all we are left are our bare, big heals. Therefore, holy paladins need to have probably the quickest reflexes among all the healers. Our strength lies in the fact that we can top up someone with half HP with just one heal, and at the same time keep tanks up easily.

So when do you use which skill?
First off, I need to make this clear: just because you're using a HL playstyle does not mean you don't use FoL.

Even after using HL spam for a long time, I still find that my output from FoL is still of a reasonable amount. This is because of the fact that you don't have to HL spam the whole fight (you'll run out of mana anyway).

The number one most important skill of a paladin is.... no, not Flash of Light. No, not Holy Light either. It's BEACON OF LIGHT.
Yes, this awesome skill is very important. More often than not you'll find this 2nd or even top of your healmeter. It's essential to keep this on your primary healing target (i.e. a tank) at all times. ALL TIMES. All times. Do I have to say it again? ALL TIMES. Ideally refresh it before the ¾ mark, since something may crop up during that short period and you're busy spamming heals and your BoL wears off. Gg tank.

FoL → use it when the raid takes small bits of damage. If you're using something like Grid, just match the number shown to your FoL amount. For example, if your FoL heals for 4k, you see any damage under 6k or so just throw FoLs.
If you're using WoW raid bars, FoL is for those with 70-100% HP.

Holy Shock → use it when there's a need to instantly top up someone, e.g. someone stands in fire abit too long. It should be used frequently though, due to the chance of Infusion of Light proc-ing

HL → use when there's incoming big damage, or when people drop below 60% HP, or when people drop below 70% but are continually taking more damage. Cast at least once every 15s though, to keep Light's Grace up. Do not be afraid to use HL. (e.g. you think 'oh, I can just use FoL to top the person up it should be enough).
The general rule of thumb is if you're not sure whether to use FoL or HL, use Holy Light.

Please note that these are just rough guides. You'll need to develop a feel yourself for which skills to use when. Healing is always situational and reactive, so don't strictly follow any 'rotations', for holy pallies at least. (I don't know much about priest/druid healing)

Arcane Torrent/Divine Plea – First off, all Horde holy pallies SHOULD be Blood Elf, I can't think of any other race with a more beneficial racial ability. (I don't know about Alliance)
Arcane Torrent should be used as often as possible. It's by far your best mana recovery talent, and you NEED to use it often to regain mana from HL spams.

Divine Plea is also very helpful in regaining mana – but do not use it when there's incoming big damage. (e.g. before a Light Vortex for Twin Valkyrs) Otherwise, don't be afraid to use it. It may help to macro any trinkets that give a boost in SP to it since this will be the best time to use them anyway.
Another alternative is macro-ing Avenging Wrath to Divine Plea, but do take note that you cannot bubble after AW is cast.. so it may be a little risky.

How about macros?
There are 2 talents/skills that I recommend to be macroed: Divine Favor, Divine Illumination.
The reason why they should be macroed is because if you don't, more often than not you'll forget about them all together! Healing is already a very busy job, you don't want to have to worry about 2 more skills to press and think about when to press it.

Divine Favor is obviously macroed to Holy Shock, which guarantees an instant FoL or shorter HL after HS every 2mins. Divine Illumination is slightly more controversial, some may say that it's better to keep this free so you can activate it for times of serious HL spamming. However, for the above-mentioned reason, I have this macroed to HL.

And as mentioned above, you can macro AW to Divine Plea, which was what I used to do. But after screwing up a Twin Valkyr fight(yes we were using bubble-sac for vortex) due to pressing that AW/DP macro too shortly before the vortex, I separated them.

For the exact macro.. you can trust my memory and use these or go google it:

Divine Favor/Holy shock macro:
#showtooltip Holy Shock
/cast Divine Favor
/cast holy shock

HL/IoL macro:
#showtooltip Holy Light
/cast Divine Illumination
/cast Holy Light

The 2 talents are not on GCD so you don't have to worry about having to press the macro button twice. One press activates both =)

Who do I heal?
More often that not (in fact, all the time) , holy pallies are assigned a tank(s) to heal. This job is fulfilled by keeping BoL 100% on the tank. HOWEVER, do not assume BoL will ALWAYS heal your tank (e.g. you see the tank take a big drop in HP, and you just confidently HL some other random person) , i've made this mistake before hence I'm warning you all.

This is due to one or more of the following things happening: BoL has worn off, the person you're targeting is out of range of BoL(unlikely, but possible), some game mechanism lag with BoL. The most common error would be the first one. I've never had #2 happening, #3 I don't know, it may be Recount lag too, but I've had tank deaths when I clearly got off a HL cast with BoL still up.

So, just something to take note. The main point is to constantly check on the duration of BoL, so that #1 never happens.

[E] General Healing Tips

Over-concentrating on HP bars
A very very common new healer weakness is this. New healers tend to pay too much attention to the HP bars … to the point they have no clue what is going on around you. I would say this is even more so for holy pallies, since we have no pre-emptive heals(HoTs) or shields or anything of the such, thus we need to be efficient. I mean, druids just run around rolling Rejuvenation on the raid :@

It will be difficult to concentrate on your surroundings especially if it's a healing intensive phase, but it's a good skill to try to develop to would make you a better healer, as well as a better player in general.

Positioning
Related to the previous point, a healer's position is very important. More often than not, you'll need to be in a central location, so that you're within range of everybody in the raid. As a raid leader, I always tell the DPSers to give priority to healers for fights that require spreading out, e.g. Acidmaw+Dreadscale.

Taking glances at your minimap is good too, to help you locate people who are out of range.

Mana management
It is said that all fights have a soft enrage → when the healers run out of mana. Thus, it is vital that you watch out for your mana pool at all times. As a BE holy pally (of course, what other race?) , you should always use Arcane Torrent when it is up. Do take note of the rare fights where you cannot just randomly cast this (e.g. Heroic Anub'arak, when adds are up). Divine Plea should be used often too if you're low on mana.

As a guide, I always try to stay above 40% mana, the moment it goes below I'll always trigger Divine Plea and start using FoL more instead of HL. This is due to the fact that there may be a damage spike and you find yourself spamming HL, and if that happens when you're below 40% you may run out of mana quickly.

Try to take notes of 'lulls' during the fight, when there is less incoming damage.
I'll just use the first 4 bosses of ICC for example:
Lord Marrowgar-> when he's not using Bone Storm
Lady → pretty random spikes in damage due to the caster's bolts.. not very healing intensive, you shouldn't run out of mana.
Gunship is a joke.
Saurfang → Conserve mana till Marks start coming out. Should be no mana issues

There are lulls in most fights, I can only think of few fights that you may run out of mana and have absolutely no lulls.. Algalon comes to mind. Anything else? Heroic Beasts is rather healing intensive for the holy pally after 3 stacks of impale, but then the lull comes when worms burrow.
These lulls would be good to use Divine Plea.

~~
As I said, it is difficult to actually TEACH healing, as there are so many aspects to it and many things and little tricks are learnt through experience. That wasn't really the aim of this guide anyway, so sorry if my tips didn't help much.
I could write a healing-by-encounter guide, but that'll depend on requests though.

[F] Conclusion
I would love to receive feedback to all this, and I'll improve it as I receive feedback. I'll even provide more arguments to convince you if you're not swayed enough by my guide. You can drop me a mail at diabteo@hotmail.com , or simply leave a comment. Of course, you can always PM me in-game on Crazerk @ Barthilas, I'll be glad to respond to any queries. I'll just ignore any random flames like 'OMG YOUR GUIDE SUCKS YOU NOOB' though.

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Guide

Talent Specs

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sxAztG0sVu0tgdxGzub:TdwcMV This build forgoes the 5% crit and improved BoM in order to obtain some very powerful utility such as a reduced cooldown on Hand of Protection, reduced stun duration and the situationally powerful Divine Guardian. In addition it is very helpful to have the increased duration on Sacred Shield putting it at the same length as your beacon.

Glyphs

There are several usefull holy glyphs however Glyph of Holy Light and Glyph of Seal of Wisdom are almost required.

Holy Light

– 10% of your holy light splashes onto 5 nearby targets, this can be very helpful in situations where massive raid damage is taking place

Seal of Wisdom

– The 5% reduced mana cost provided by this glyph is massively helpful over the duration of a fight, in addition you want to have SoW active over SoL so that if necessary you can sneak in some melee hits when possible to refill your mana pool in emergency situations.

Holy Shock

- Decreases the cool-down on your Holy Shock by 1 sec. This may seem a mediocre glyph however for heavy movement fights such as Professor Putricide it can be very helpful

Glyph of Beacon of Light

- Increases the durration of your Beacon of Light by 30 secconds. This glyph's value comes from allowing you to cast Beacon less frequently saving both mana and more importantly avoiding fighting the GCD durring critical moments.

Gearing and Stats

Holy paladins are all about maximizing mana efficiency, we have one of the highest throughputs in the game but are constantly balancing our effective healing with mana conservation.

Intellect

– This is by far our most important stat, this is what you will be gemming for with rare exception. Things to keep in mind about intellect include the fact that your spell power scales with intellect and that both Divine Plea and Replenishment restore mana on a percentage basis, meaning the higher your mana pool is the more mana you get back.

Crit

– Crit is a usefull stat because it provides you not only with increased throughput but also 30% mana back from Illumination on any heal that crits, while not our most effecient means of mana returns, I would give crit more focus than haste after a certain point

Mp5

- Devine Plea has made Mp5 much less atractive, however the mana returns it provides still substantial and if you at all find yourself mana starved on fights such as Festergut you may want to consider trading out some crit or haste pieces for something with a little Mp5.

Haste

– Haste is helpful, a shorter HL cast can oftin mean the difference between a tanks life and death. Haste and not SP or Crit is your primary means of increasing your healing throughput. Be wary when choosing gear however to not stack haste at the expense of Mp5 or even crit as doing so can easily bring you into the realm of mana problems on longer fights.

Spell Power

– Spell power is treated largely as an inevitabillity. It will be on your gear, it's useful, but largely just ignore the values. We have some of the largest healing throughput in the game, a tank will almost never die because your Holy Light didn't hit hard enough, indeed holy light already hits so hard that much of it will go to overhealing.

Spirit

– A literal useless stat, it is worthless to us.

General Functionality

I have always healed based primarily on rules and priorities, as stated in many of these sections there is no single correct way of doing things, but I will give you my general thoughts based on my experiance as raider.

A holy paladin's “Focus” will almost always be on healing a tank, however you will almost never be directly casting heals on your Beacon target as it is more effective to cast a heal on someone else and have it doubled onto the tank. A holy paladin's goal is 100% uptime of Beacon of Light (aswell as Sacred Shield) on the tank so that they can be free to throw heals to raid members instead of the tank. This can be tough to get used to but what is important to remember is that you should never not be casting. You should always be aware of the tanks health and if it starts to drop start casting a holy light on whoever you happen to be targeting and those heals will be transferred to the tank.

I find this addon to be massively helpful with reguard to achieving 100% uptime, it lets you know when either Beacon or SS will expire soon and how long is left on each. It is important to refresh beacon before a heavy healing phase of a fight so that you arn't stuck doing it instead of healing.
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/clcbpt.aspx

Spell Usage:

Devine Guardian

- This abillity is one of the most powerfull utillities we have to offer. Knowing the mechanics of a fight so that you can be ready to use Guardian durring instances of heavy raid damage is a must. One of my favorite times to use it is right before Festergut does his Pungent Blight, this can oftin save the lives of anyone who may not have 3 stacks of the spores.

Aura Mastery

- A very powerfull situational abillity gained through a single talent point. Most commonly it is used to double the raids resistance to a certain school of magic for example I use it durring the Bone Storm on Marrowgar incase someone finds themselves running through the cold flame, I also use it along with Shadow Resist Aura on Festergut.

Holy Light

– This is your primary spell, when glyphed appropriately using it heals the target aswell as splash healing 5 nearby

targets making it extremely helpful raid healing. It can often be very effective to heal the Offtank while your beacon is located on the Main Tank.

Flash of Light

– Used in one situation, when the damage being taken by the raid and tank is very light and you have the luxury

of being mana efficient. This can be helpful in fights that shift between heavy damage and light damage.
Advanced:
FoL can also be used on the tank to apply a HoT, this hot is mildly helpful however skipping out on 100% uptime has almost no effect. Keep the HoT up

if your capable of it, but if its too much to keep track of simply disregard.

Holy Shock

– This is your “Hes taking damage fast” button, generaly used on non tank raid members in situations where you

expect fast damage, for example if fire just spawned below a player Holy Shock will heal the initial damage and then a followup FoL (especialy of the

Holy Shock was a crit as this gives you an instant FoL) can take care of any further damage as they move out of the fire.

Judgement of Light

– This provides hefty raid healing, it is important that you judge ever 60 secconds to keep up seals of the pure however if there is no other paladin applying JoL you may want to judge more often.

Sacred Shield

– Keep it on the tank. Shoot for 100% uptime, if you have an offtank who is dealing with multiple mobs or a fast

hitting boss put it on that tank instead if there is no other holy pally.

Lay on Hands

– 1 shot full heal, use it sparingly as it is on a 15min CD.. In times of extreame mana issues you can use it on yourself to return mana.

Cleanse – Use this to remove applicable debuffs. Not all debuffs are worth cleansing, use your judgment and be aware.

Beacon

– Its on the tank in most cases.

Divine Plea

– This can be one of our most helpful, and most crippling spells. What is important to realize is that because it cuts your healing in half you must make an effort to only use it in situations where the loss of healing will not prevent you from keeping the tank alive. I have found the best way to do this is by (when possible) coupling its usuage with popping Avenging Wrath (Wings) or trinkets.

In Practice:

Assuming that Beacon and Sacred Shield are on your focus your goal should be raid healing. The general rule of thumb is to heal by deficiency.

Target has -6000 HP:

Flash of Light if you have downtime or Holy Shock is on CD. Holy Shock if there is more healing that needs to be done quickly.

Target has -8000 or more HP:

Holy Light if mana is at a reasonable level, otherwise FoL

Situational spells:

These spells rarely come into play, but effective usage of them is the difference between a good healer, and a great healer.

Turn Evil

– Can be helpful to get rid of undead, and demons attacking you. The warlock pet on Faction Champs for example. Its a

simple target and cast fear.

Seal of Wisdom

– If you have extremely low mana or are in a mana intensive fight that allows you to be close to the boss it can

be massively helpful (almost overpowering so) to stand next to the boss and auto atack in-between heals. Never stop healing to do this but even a

single melee swing returns massive mana.

Hand of Salvation

– Almost never used but briefly reduces the targets threat, if someone is pulling heavy threat consider using

this 2min CD on them.

Hand of Protection

– Very helpful, especially on the faction champions fight and anub'arak. If you are situationally aware and

see a raid member being hit by a source of physical damage quickly targeting them and using this spell is often the only way to save them.

Hand of Freedom

– Can remove you or your target from snares and other movement impairing effects, without providing examples

this will really be trial and error on your part.

Holy Wraith

– Stuns and damages undead around you, very useful if on the scarabs on anub'arak.

Events:

Target is a tank and near death:

Lay on Hands. If LoH is on CD then Holy Shock (Followed by an instant FoL if it crit) then Holy Light till tank is topped off.

You have Died and been resurrected mid fight:

Pop divine plea, put up Seal of Wisdom and try and get a few melee hits in to restore your mana pool, you can be back up to near full mana in no time

at all doing this but you must balance that with getting back to the fight as soon as possible.

You are near death:

Use Divine Shield and continue healing. You should also put Hand of Sacrifice on the tank any time you are bubbled.

An add is atacking you :

Tab target, use hammer of justice, run to a tank.

Low on Mana:

Use a mana pot if possible, otherwise divine plea and SoW melee swings are your best bet. Casting Lay of Hands on yourself is also an option

Auras:

Auras are situational, if none of your resist auras are needed then concentration aura should be up. Sometimes it is necessary to float auras as situations present themselves.

Consumables

Flask of the Frost Wyrm

– This is your primary flask, it provides a hefty boost to your spellpower

Flask of Mojo

– This flask is somewhat usefull situationally, I personaly have started to favor it on some of the more mana intensive fights.

Runic Mana Potions

– While hopefully not necessary its important to always keep a mana potion on you in case you need mana back instantly while heavy damage is going out.

There are other Elixers that are still very viable if you have the gold to invest in a large quantity of them.

Addons

Pally Power

– Very helpful in paladin buff management
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/pally-power.aspx

Paladin Beacon of Light, Sacred Shield Tracker

– As mentioned above this is almost a must have
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/clcbpt.aspx

X-perl and Grid are also both very helpful as unit frames

- There is alot of personal preference involved with unit frames, and ofcourse healbot is forever popular

Things that still need to be updated/expanded/added:

Minor Glyphs and lesser used major glyphs Clean up Article formating and links

Edit this article: Holy Paladin

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Audience

Introductory level Retribution guide.

Guide

Although the class was once considered little more than buff bot, the Retribution specialization of the Wrath of the Lich King era has become a competitive source of top end raid DPS. With Seal of Corruption/Vengeance skilled Retribution Paladins are able to surpass even Hunters in terms of single target DPS. With Seal of Command, we’re able to hold our own in terms of area of effect (AOE) DPS.

Class Strengths
In true “faceroll” form with Seal of Corruption/Vengeance, Retribution excels at single target DPS where there is little to no movement or target switching. An example of this type of encounter in Trial of the Crusader would be Twin Val’kyr or Lord Jaraxxus. Retribution performs well in this type of encounter because one is able to maximize the number of melee and yellow hits, seal procs, and DOT uptime.

With Seal of Command, the second type of encounter that Retribution excels at consists of rapid target switches and multiple mobs. An encounter of this type is not present in Trial of the Crusader. In the upcoming Icecrown Citadel raid, two strong examples are the Icecrown Airship Battle and Valithria Dreamwalker. Retribution excels at this type of encounter because Seal of Command requires no ramp up time and the seal proc, since 3.2, has become a strong cleave.

Class Weaknesses
Seal of Corruption/Vengeance is both a blessing and a curse. In order to deal high DPS one needs to reach a five stack of Blood Corruption or Holy Vengeance. This ramp up process takes roughly 15 seconds. Consequently, Retribution performs poorly on single target DPS encounters that require frequent target switches and the reapplication of our five stack. Northrend Beasts would be the best example of this type of encounter in Trial of the Crusader.

Rotation
Retribution has no rotation per se. Similar to Hunters, we use a first come, first serve priority order to determine which ability to use next. There is no one definitive priority order. The order for a given Ret depends on one's level of gear, set bonuses, and raid buffs. For those with at least two piece T9 and mostly ilvl245 equipment, the optimal priority order is Judgement > Crusader Strike > Divine Storm > Consecration > Hammer of Wrath > Exorcism. In order to determine your individual priority order, I highly recommend a sandbox DPS program called Rawr.

Talents
There are three general ways to spec as Retribution: Aura Mastery, Divine Sacrifice, or Vindication. In each of the three sub specs your generic DPS talents remain the same. How you spec should be dependent upon the request of your raid leader or the demands of a given encounter.

Aura Mastery (11/5/55): If there's any sort of raid shadow, fire, or frost damage then Aura Mastery will provide a significant amount of damage mitigation. Moreover Aura Mastery has situational uses in combination with Concentration Aura. Two examples from Ulduar would be Freya where AM can provide immunity to pacify during the Anicent Conservator phase and Yogg-Saron where AM can break his silence effect.

Divine Sacrifice (5/11/55): This talent is exceptional for encounters with massive AOE damage that we can't Aura Mastery. The two examples from Ulduar are General Vezax and Iron Council.

Vindication: (5/5/57*): At first glance a 547 AP reduction might not seem like it's significant. Vindication generally provides a 15% reduction in incoming DPS for most raid bosses. It's essential. Talk to your tanks. If you pick up Vindication this may allow them to reallocate a few of their talents towards more threat or mitigation. If your main tank is a Death Knight, then you may be the primary source of boss AP reduction in the raid.

*There are four free talent points to allocate and no strong talents to pick up.

Glyphs
Retribution has a limited selection of useful major glyphs. If you have 16 or less expertise skill then the optimal DPS glyph setup is Seal of Vengeance / Consecration / Judgement. In TOC there are quite a few expertise laden plate items. If you’re near 26 unbuffed expertise skill, then it’s optimal to replace Glyph of Seal of Vengeance with Glyph of Exorcism.

Certain encounters may require specialized glyphs. For example, many Retribution Paladins use Glyph of Holy Wrath for Heroic 25 Anub’arak so that you may pre-stun the Nerubian Burrowers before Shadowstrike is cast. Some Retribution Paladins may also find Glyph of Turn Evil useful for Heroic 25 Faction Champions.

Gems
Relentless Earthsiege Diamond is the highest DPS meta for Retribution Paladins. In order activate this meta you'll need one blue, one yellow, and one red gem. Nightmare Tears are prismatic, therefore a single Nightmare Tear is sufficient to meet all three portions of the meta requirement. The ideal location for a Nightmare Tear is in a blue gem socket with a +STR socket bonus.

In red and blue gem sockets the optimal gem is always a Bold Cardinal Ruby.

The optimal gem for a yellow gem socket varies depending on gear level and the socket bonus. If you are 10 or more hit rating below the melee hit cap (263), then you should use an Etched Ametrine. If you are at or above the melee hit cap, then Inscribed Ametrines should be used in yellow gem sockets with a four or greater +STR socket bonus. For yellow gem sockets that do not have a four or greater +STR socket bonus, one should use a Bold Cardinal Ruby.

Enchants and Enhancements
There is little choice when it comes to the optimal DPS enchants for Retribution.

Head: Arcanum of Torment
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Axe
Back: Major Agility
Chest: Powerful Stats
Wrist: Greater Assault
Gloves: Crusher
Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle
Legs: Icescale Leg Armor
Weapon: Berserking

The optimal boot enchant will vary depending on your gear. If you are below the melee hit cap (263 rating), then you should use Icewalker. If you are above the melee hit cap, then you should use Greater Assault.

Professions
The two highest DPS professions for Retribution are Jewelcrafting (+42 STR) and Blacksmithing (+40 STR). Enchanting (+80 AP) and Inscription (+80 AP) are viable alternatives, however they provide slightly less DPS. A profession that provides pure STR results in a higher DPS increase than a profession that provides additional AP because the +STR provided by Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing is modified by the Divine Strength talent (+15% STR) and Blessing of Kings (+10% STR).

Consumables
A good Retribution Paladin will always use all three types of consumables: flask, food, and potion.

Flask: Flask of Endless Rage
Food: Dragonfin Filet (if you're cheap, you can use Fish Feast for a minor DPS loss)
Potion: Potion of Speed

In certain encounters that are especially mana intensive, you may find it necessary to use a Runic Mana Potion rather than Potion of Speed. Keep plenty of both types in your bag!

Hit and Expertise
The hit cap for a melee DPS refers to the point at which you can remove Misses from the attack table. In general, a raid level mob is level 83. This means that you need an additional 8% hit or 263 hit rating in order to remove misses from the attack table.

The expertise cap for a melee DPS refers to the point at which you can remove Dodges from the attack table. For Retribution the expertise cap varies depending on glyph choice. Glyph of Seal of Vengeance provides 10 expertise skill when Seal of Vengeance/Corruption is active. For those who are using Glyph of Seal of Vengeance, the expertise cap is 16 expertise skill or 132 expertise rating. For those who are not using the glyph, the expertise cap is 26 expertise skill or 213 expertise rating.

For alliance characters, racial bonuses may greatly alter these numbers.

Your UI!
The basic raiding addons any Retribution should include a boss mod, raid frames, and a blessing buff tool. In addition to these basic addons, there are several tools that can help you optimize your DPS in a raid setting. In general I follow a principle of minimalism. A UI should take up as little screen real estate as possible while maximizing your situational awareness.

CLCRet: this mod will likely provide the single largest DPS increase of any mod in the game. Our rotation is by no means complicated, but this tool allows you to “auto pilot” your DPS rotation while focusing more on the mechanics of an encounter.

Example: my UI.

As you can see, CLCRet has a prominent position within the center of my screen. This allows me to "faceroll" my rotation while paying attention to other important aspects of the encounter, like fire on the ground, incoming debuffs, or boss mod timers.

Third Party Tools
Rawr
SimulationCraft
Rawr is the mainstream tool for Retribution Paladins to evaluate gear upgrades and rotation priorities. SimulationCraft’s Paladin module is becoming increasingly refined; however, Rawr is more user friendly than SimulationCraft. The way SimulationCraft is designed makes it a poor tool for evaluating multiple pieces of gear, but I find its DPS output data more realistic and informative. For some reason not yet explained, SimulationCraft values haste rating more heavily than critical strike rating when compared to Rawr.

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