Cataclysm Holy Paladin Guide

[Chamenas]

Note: This isn't an official Tankspot guide. However, its intent is to be a helpful resource for the community and as such I hope it will be accepted regardless.

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Archive:
Pre 4.01 Holy Paladin Guide p1
Pre 4.01 Holy Paladin Guide p2
4.0.1 Holy Pally Survival Guide
4.0.1 Holy Paladin Gameplay Guide

Index

1. Stats/Gear
2. Spells
3. Talent Trees
4. Miscellaneous
5. http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?63314-WotLK-Holy-Paladin-Guide-%28updated-for-4.0.1%29&p=375317#post375317

Introduction
4.0.1 and Cataclysm brought a lot of changes to the table in how Paladins heal. While an expansion often changes how healers heal quite a bit, the amount of changes brought forth by this expansion and its patches have had major impacts to healing in general and to Holy Paladins as a whole. The point of this guide is not to make your decisions for you, nor is it always going to have the information that is “right” for every situation. Rather, this guide is aimed at giving you useful information with which to make your decisions and prepare you for a critical thinking mindset which you can use to help yourself as you progress through content and find that you might need to do different things in different situations.


This guide will cover the full talent tree and explain what makes a talent a good talent choice, what makes certain talents “must” haves and what makes certain talents undesirable to most PvE content. After talents we'll take a look at spells and how various spells should factor into your decision making for “when to cast what” and how to conserve your mana. After spells we'll talk about stats, the sort of gear you'll be looking for and the enchants and gems you'll want to make your healing the best that it can be. Last we'll cover any other topics of importance which don't fall under any of those.


There's a lot of changes to healing in Cataclysm, but, with proper preparation and knowledge you can be ready to deal with the content and perform well.


Credits for the Original Pre 4.01 guide:
I'd like to give specific thanks to some of the people who have helped me edit this guide and make it the best it can possibly be: Odene, Amamaeth, Meeks, Tierax, and Zurena.

[Chamenas]

Gear and Stats for Holy Paladins

Stat Priority
Intellect > Spirit > Haste > Crit/Mastery

It would be easy for me to tell you that this is the preferred stat priority and leave it at that, but that's not the intention of this guide. This guide's purpose is to help you understand and make better decisions for yourself, as such, it's important for you to understand why stats are given various levels of importance over one another and why it even matters.

Intellect

In Cataclysm, Intellect is responsible for increasing spellpower as well as Crit. Of course, naturally, Intellect is also the only way for us to increase our mana pool, the resource which allows us to cast most of our heals. For Paladins, Intellect also offers us mana regen through Divine Plea, and, of course, everyone gains a bit of regen through Intellect with Replenishment. In short, Intellect makes our heals bigger and allows us to cast the heals in the first place, additionally, it helps keep us casting longer through regen.

Spirit

In Cataclysm, Spirit is the only pure Mp5 resource in the game. While Intellect will provide regen through outside spells and abilities, the design of Spirit is simply to provide regen. Spirit has two types of regen, the regeneration it provides out of combat and the regeneration it provides through Meditation, which allows 50% of your Spirit Regeneration to continue in combat. In Blizzard's new model, mana comes at a premium, which gives Spirit plenty of value through all points. The only way that Spirit would lose value is if you found that you were at near full mana all the time, and thus you were beginning to waste the majority of the value of your regen.

Haste

Divine Light and Holy Light are long, slow-casting spells. Even Flash of Light, our quickest non-instant spell, can have its cast time reduced, and faster heals mean a number of things for us. The most obvious benefit is that a quicker heal saves people faster. World of Warcraft has been designed so that whether or not a character can live is often decided by a matter of a second or less, and so getting that heal off as soon as possible is priority. Haste is also a throughput stat, since you can heal more often if you can heal quicker, which means that you can heal more over time. However, unlike other throughput stats, Haste also allows you to spread that throughput over multiple targets, which makes it more flexible, of course it trades power for flexibility. True increases in throughput with Haste are only seen over extended periods of time, unlike the instant results of Crit or spellpower through Intellect. Furthermore, it can be difficult to notice the effects of Haste, since it requires large amounts of Haste rating to show visible effects in the reduced cast time of spells. Still, Haste is reliable and with enough of it you'll notice an increase in your overall healing ability.

Haste Soft-Cap: The soft cap for haste, for Holy Paladins, is the time that it takes for Flash of Light to equal 1 second, this is because the global cooldown, also affected by haste, cannot be reduced below 1 second. Any haste beyond this point will still make your casts faster, but you will be unable to actually cast more than one spell per second. As of Cataclysm, it takes 128.2 haste rating to equal 1% haste which means that, assuming you have Judgements of the Pure up at all times, you'll need 5256.2 haste rating to soft cap. With a Balance Druid, Elemental Shaman, or Shadow Priest in your group (or raid) you'll only need 4615.2 haste. Obviously, reaching the cap isn't possible with current gear, and Blizzard has suggested that they don't intend to make it possible at all.

Crit

Crit, short for Critical Strike Rating, is the chance that your heals will gain a critical effect, allowing them to heal for far more than they usually would. Unlike other stats, an increase in Crit rating does not increase the size or effectiveness of the Crit. Instead, an increase in Crit rating increases the chance that your Crit will occur. Because of this, it's very difficult to see or measure the effectiveness of increasing your Crit, it's entirely possible to see a lucky streak or to be unlucky and see nothing as a result of its increase. Crit used to provide some mana regen through talents, but, in Cataclysm, Crit's only value is in its potential to make for bigger heals. Still, with larger health pools, the value of this ability is not wasted and it's important not to forget that Crit does have quite a bit of value in increasing your ability to rescue people from emergencies.

Crit for Conviction: I would suggest that Crit has slightly more value than Haste or Mastery in regards to its use for keeping Conviction up. Obviously, unless you have 100% it's not reliable, however, statistics can give us a rough goal of an amount of Crit to aim for for us to reasonably expect at least 1 crit in a certain number of casts. In 15 seconds, we can expect to cast roughly 7 spells. That's assuming we cast Holy Shock on cooldown and fill in the rest of the time with Holy Shock. Things like Daybreak, Infusion of Light, or casting Flash of Light can perhaps give us a bit more casts, but we want to have a solid, predictable amount of casts to go off of, anything extra just helps us. The following formula helps us determine, from 7 casts, the statistical likelihood of receiving a crit at a certain percentage:
1-(1-x)^n
In this formula, n is the number of casts, so we'll replace that with 7. x is the percentage in decimal form, so we can replace that number with any percentage and then find out the result. For example, with 30% crit we get: 1-(1-0.3)^7=0.917, or, roughly a 92% chance of getting a crit out of 7 casts. Those are pretty good odds. Here's a graph of percentages 1 to 40:



As you can see in the graph, after roughly 30% the power of Crit in regards to helping us keep Conviction up diminishes. However, you might find that your amount of Crit reliably keeps Conviction up before that point, so the ultimate decision of when you should stop stacking Crit for Conviction is ultimately a personal decision.

Mastery

Mastery is a new stat in Cataclysm that works differently for different specs, for Holy Paladins it gives us a new ability. Illuminated Healing places a shield on the target of your direct heals and the size of the shield is determined by one's Mastery rating. On the outset, Mastery is a very powerful stat for Paladins. Shields have the advantage over heals in that they're not wasted on a target at full health. Furthermore, shields react to damage taken instantly, whereas even instant heals take a time measured by the reaction of the caster. Unfortunately, the shields of one heal are replaced by the shield of another heal if it is cast before the first heal's shield is used up. In many cases, your target will take damage before you can get another heal off, but there are plenty of instances where shields will be replaced before they can be used, resulting in a waste. Additionally, Illuminated Healing has a set duration and can fall off if no damage is taken, once again meaning it is wasted. Still, shields are an invaluable tool for healing and you will definitely have its uses.

Note: It's not possible for a smaller heal to replace a larger shield. Instead, smaller heals will refresh the larger shield on the target, only a larger heal will replace the larger shield.

Understanding these stats will help you to know why certain stats have value over others in allowing you to be the most efficient healer possible. It's important not to undervalue certain stats or pretend that they're useless. It's easy to take the relative comparison between stats and use it as a measure, but each stat should be weighed on its own merits and faults.

A quick note on throughput gains: Your Mastery and Crit provide throughput without the added cost of mana, i.e. Crit gives you bigger heals while Mastery gives you shields, both increase your throughput but don't take more mana to do so. Haste, on the other hand, simply increases your throughput by allowing you to cast more spells. However, because you must actually cast the spells, which costs mana, Haste's throughput comes at an added price. It should be noted, however, that this price still allows for reliable throughput gains, and can be counted on during an emergency, when a stat like Crit cannot be.

Reforging
The information I've given you will hopefully help you to make your own decisions about how you should reforge. However, I offer this next section for quick reference.

In general, I reforge my Mastery and Crit with a Spirit > Haste priority. If a piece of gear already has spirit on it, then it can't be reforged with more and you should reforge to haste instead. I choose to do this not because I don't value Mastery or Crit, but because I see myself needing Spirit and Haste more. While bigger heals are important, and shields can be useful, both stats end up being situational, however, regenerating mana and faster heals are useful universally and that makes up the bulk of my decision making and why I do what I do with reforging.

Gemming
I prefer to stick with gemming for Intellect. Why? Intellect is your most valuable stat, since it helps your heals grow in size and allows you to heal for longer. You can't reforge Intellect, otherwise it would have been suggested in the reforging. However, when you choose to gem, you can gem for it. Unfortunately, the meta gem which seems the most ideal for us requires two yellow gems to activate, and Intellect is a red gem. Thus, here is my suggested gem list:
Suggested
Red or Blue slot: Brilliant Inferno Ruby
Yellow Slot: 2 Reckless Ember Topaz, then all Brilliant Inferno Rubies
Meta: Ember Shadowspirit Diamond, this gives you increased mana and mana regen.

Alternative
Red slot: Brilliant Inferno Ruby
Blue slot: 1 Purified Demonseye, then all Brilliant Inferno Rubies
Yellow slot: 1 Reckless Ember Topaz, then all Brilliant Inferno Rubies
Meta: Revitalizing Shadowspirit Diamond

Enchanting
Like gemming, we want to maximize our stats in order of their priority to us. This means we look for enchants which give us Intellect over Spirit over Haste over Crit or Mastery. However, in some instances we'll make exceptions of the enchant offers us a useful effect, such as Lavawalker for boots which offers a movement speed increase.

Back ......| Enchant Cloak – Greater Intellect
Helm .....| Arcanum of Hyjal
Shoulder | Greater Inscription of the Charged Lodestone
Hands ....| Enchant Gloves – Greater Mastery
Feet .......| Enchant Boots - Lavawalker
Chest .....| Enchant Chest – Exceptional Spirit
- Alternative: Enchant Chest – Peerless Stats
Wrist .....| Enchant Bracer – Greater Speed
Legs ......| Powerful Ghostly Spellthread
Shield ....| Enchant Off-Hand – Superior Intellect
Weapon .| Enchant Weapon – Power Torrent
- Alternative: Enchant Weapon – Heartsong

Next we'll talk about healing spells.

[Chamenas]

Spells
Healing in Cataclysm is about managing one's mana and keeping others alive, but not necessarily at full. This last point is crucial, because, in previous content, healing someone to full was an obligation of the healer since, at any given point, being at less than full health could result in someone's death as a result of incidental raid damage. Going forward, healers should follow a Triage healing model, I have a rather extensive explanation of Triage healing here.

For Paladins specifically, we want to use our most mana-efficient heals, using our big, heavy mana heals only for specific situations in which they might be needed. We've gained a lot of heals, but I want to go through them in order of their mana-efficiency and explain the situations in which they are best used. After talking about our heals I will talk about some strategies and tactics which can be used to conserve and regen mana, lastly, I will talk about some of our utility spells and how they can be used to prevent the need for healing and ultimately help the raid progress forward.

Note: References to “proper self-buffs” below includes having 3 stacks of Conviction and a glyphed Seal of Insight (with Seal of Insight active of course).

Direct Healing Spells
Word of Glory
Cost: 1 Holy Power
Cast: Instant
Duration: n/a (unless glyphed, explained later)
Cooldown: n/a
Effect: Consumes all Holy Power to heal a friendly target for x per charge of Holy Power
Notes: In average iLvl 332 gear with 4658 spellpower and self-buffs this spell heals for roughly 14k at 3 charges of HPW

Word of Glory is our most efficient single-target heal since it heals for as much as a Flash of Light, is instant, and, most importantly, costs no mana with no cooldown. Unfortunately, in order for Word of Glory to truly be useful it instead requires that we have 3 charges of our secondary resource as Paladins: Holy Power. Holy Power can be gathered in a number of ways as you will see in this guide, it caps at 3 and does not decay in combat. Holy Power should be used as often as it hits 3 charges, however, if no damage is being taken at the moment it's acceptable to wait a second or two before spending your Holy Power on a heal. Anything more than a few seconds though and it's likely better to just dump the Holy Power on your tank or to top someone off and build it back up again.

Holy Shock
Cost: 8% of Base Mana (~1.8k @85)
Cast: Instant
Duration: n/a
Cooldown: 6 seconds
Effect: Blasts the target with Holy energy, causing x Holy damage to an enemy, or y healing to an ally, and grants a charge of Holy Power.
Notes: In average iLvl 332 gear with 4658 spellpower and self-buffs this spell heals for roughly 7k

Holy Shock is our second-most efficient single-target heal, and our most efficient of mana heals. This spell should almost always be cast on cooldown, unless there's no damage being taken and no one needs to be topped off. Even if no damage is occurring, Holy Shock should be used to keep buffs such as Conviction rolling and to generate Holy Power, so it's not completely wasted if used on a target at full health.

Holy Light
Cost: 9% of Base Mana (~2k @85)
Cast: 3 seconds
Duration: n/a
Cooldown: n/a
Effect: Heals a friendly target for x
Notes: In average iLvl 332 gear with 4658 spellpower and self-buffs this spell heals for roughly 9k

Holy Light is our “go-to” heal, the one heal which can be “spammed” if needed, though, if you're only spamming this heal, you'll probably find a lot of people dying and taking far more damage than you can heal through. Holy Light is a relatively small heal with a lengthy cast-time, as a result it doesn't cost much mana, but doesn't do a whole lot healing-wise either. This spell is best used during quiet periods to help keep Conviction up and slowly bring targets back up out of the non-critical zone if you know they won't be taking a lot of damage any time soon. With haste and procs the cast time of this spell can be reduced significantly.

Flash of Light
Cost: 27% of Base Mana (~6k @85)
Cast: 1.5 seconds
Duration: n/a
Cooldown: n/a
Effect: A quick, expensive heal that heals a friendly target for x
Notes: In average iLvl 332 gear with 4658 spellpower and self-buffs this spell heals for roughly 16.7k

Flash of Light has become a situational heal, and is no-longer a go-to spell. The best use of Flash of Light is for targets at low health that need to be healed up out of the danger-zone quickly. Tanks or otherwise, if you know they're about to take damage and you cannot afford to spend time healing them, Flash of Light should be used. However, your mana pool will drain quickly casting it, so be careful.

Divine Light
Cost: 30% of Base Mana (~7k @85)
Cast: 3 seconds
Duration: n/a
Cooldown: n/a
Effect: A large heal that heals a friendly target for x. Good for periods of heavy damage.
Notes: In average iLvl 332 gear with 4658 spellpower and self-buffs this spell heals for roughly 25k

Divine Light is our biggest, baddest heal, aka our least efficient. It costs the most mana and is the slowest. With proper haste and procs, Divine Light can have a decent cast time, but will drain one's mana fast. This spell is particularly useful to heal targets that need to be healed up quickly but aren't dangerously low. This is because one Divine Light is faster than 2 Flash of Lights and far more mana-efficient for the comparative healing it puts out. If you find yourself healing a target that is taking more damage than you can keep up with, you may need to switch into Divine Light healing mode, just remember that you won't be able to keep it up very long.

Lay on Hands
Cost: n/a
Cast: Instant
Duration: n/a
Cooldown: 10 minutes
Effect: Heals a friendly target for an amount equal to the Paladin's maximum health. IF used on self, the Paladin cannot be targeted by Divine Shield or Hand of Protection for 2 min.
Notes: This heals for your hp, in iLvl 332 gear that's roughly a 100k heal.

Lay on Hands is an exceptionally useful and efficient spell. Technically it's our most efficient, but, with its huge cooldown it's not one that we get to use very often, a sort of once-per-encounter type deal. Save this spell for when your target is getting dangerously low and you don't have the ability to get them back up any other way. You can glyph Lay on Hands to also grant you 10% of your maximum mana when used, which is certainly useful.

Area of Effect Heals
For the first time ever, Paladins have true Area of Effect healing.

Light of Dawn
Cost: 1 Holy Power
Cast: Instant
Duration: n/a
Cooldown: n/a
Effect: Consumes all Holy Power to send a wave of healing energy before you, healing up to 4 of the most injured targets in your party or raid within a 30 yard frontal cone for x per charge of Holy Power.
Notes: In average iLvl 332 gear with 4658 spellpower and self-buffs this spell heals for roughly 8.8k per target

Light of Dawn is our 31-pt talent and our most mana-efficient AoE heal since it costs no mana. It doesn't heal for much, it's effectively like a free Holy Shock on 5 targets in front of you. The most important thing to note about this spell is that it requires Holy Power to use, is only really effective at 3 Holy Power and that it's a frontal cone, so if you want to heal people they will need to be grouped together in front of you. The positioning challenges of this spell are its greatest inhibitor, as it's quite difficult to get 5 people clumped together in front of you, especially with so many encounter mechanics that require spreading out. Still, the spell finds its uses and is particularly effective on melee. If you're healing a tank, you can position yourself in such a way so as to heal the tank and any nearby melee with this spell when you need to use it. Since Word of Glory heals for almost twice the amount of Light of Dawn, you will only want to use this spell in place of Word of Glory if the melee you're capable of healing with this in addition to the tank are all needing healing and the Tank isn't immediately threatened by death. This is not to suggest that Light of Dawn cannot be used on ranged. Many encounters force ranged to stack up in clumps, in these situations Light of Dawn will work just as well on your Ranged if needed.

Holy Radiance
Cost: 40% of base man
Cast: Instant
Duration: 10 seconds
Cooldown: 1 min (reduced by talents)
Effect: Heals all friendly targets within 20 yards for up to x every sec, with effectiveness diminishing on targets farther than 8 yards away and for each additional player target beyond 6. Lasts 10 sec.
Notes: In average iLvl 332 gear with 4658 spellpower and self-buffs this spell heals for roughly 1.4k per target within 8 yards and at 6 or less per second.

Holy Radiance costs quite a bit of mana and you shouldn't expect it to really do a lot of healing for you. Instead, the intent of Holy Radiance is to work in conjunction with other AoE heals and your own single-target healing. More than anything else, this spell will help stabilize some of the party or raid damage taken so that it's more manageable to heal through a party-wide or raid-wide AoE. Obviously, due to the nature of this spell, it's also positionally affected and best used on melee. However, like Light of Dawn, this spell will also be effective on clumps of Ranged if they need to stack up.

Our AoE heals are very limited, which still puts Holy Paladins in a situation of likely being primary Tank healers. The important thing is that we have the option to use the AoE heals, and, if we're smart about positioning and timing, we can use our AoE heals to great effect, especially in melee range. In-line with the Triage style, our AoE heals seem to be more about helping to stabilize heavy AoE damage rather than actually heal our targets up.

Mana Regen
Divine Plea
Cooldown: 2 min
Effect: You gain 10% (15% glyphed) of your total mana over 15 sec, but the amount healed by your healing spells is reduced by 50%.

Divine Plea is still our important mana-regen cooldown. To those who have healed in the previous expansion, it will not seem nearly as strong as it did in the past, however, its usage will still be relatively similar. If you know that the reduction to healing isn't going to hurt you, you should use it as often as you can as soon as you dip below roughly 10-15% mana. If you wait to use this spell until you're almost OOM then you're wasting its overall effectiveness by not giving it time to work off its cooldown while you spend more mana.

Judgement/Seal of Insight
Cooldown: Judge: 8 sec. Seal of Insight: n/a
Effect: Judge: Unleashes the energy of a Seal to judge an enemy for Holy damage. Seal of Insight: Fills the Paladin with divine power for 30 min, giving each single-target melee attack a chance to heal the Paladin for x and restore 4% of the Paladin's base mana. Unleasing this Seal's energy will deal 1256 Holy damage to an enemy and restore 15% of the Paladin's base mana.

I cannot emphasize this point enough: Using Seal of Insight and Judging on Cooldown is the most important aspect of Holy Paladin mana regen. Learn it, live it, love it. With the heavy nerfs to mana regen overall, Paladins still retain this extremely strong ability to regen mana. Not only is judging on cooldown an effective way to get back mana, but we can also simply run into melee range and start whacking on the boss to get a chance for mana as well. There are obvious drawbacks: melee-range tends to take a lot more damage, deals with knockbacks, silences, stuns and interrupts, and, if you're meleeing, you're not healing. Ultimately, whether or not you run into melee-range to regen mana will be a personal decision based on encounter mechanics. Be smart about it. Often times just judging on cooldown will be enough, remember that you don't need full mana, you just need to not be OOM before the end of the fight.

Cooldowns/Utility
This next sub-section covers our cooldowns. Cooldowns are not only important to help us keep up with particularly damage-intensive portions of a fight, but can also be methods by which we conserve mana. Remember that if you toss out bigger heals that you'll need to cast less individual heals to do your job, and the less you have the cast the more mana you save.

Beacon of Light
Cooldown: n/a
Cost: 6% of Base Mana (n/a if glyphed)
Duration: 5 min
Effect: The target becomes a Beacon of Light to all members of your party or raid within a 60 yard radius. Each heal you cast on party or raid members will also heal the Beacon for 50% of the amount healed.

Beacon of Light, though no longer as powerful as it once was, is still an exceptionally useful spell and should be kept up at all times on a target that is consistently taking damage. In most situations this will be the Tank. However, in some encounters a DPS might be your target if they're targeted by a specific mechanic that deals heavy damage. Or, in fights with heavy raid AoE or lots of movement you may even consider putting it on yourself. Because the target of the heals is only healed 50% of your direct healing, you cannot simply place the Beacon on them and never need to heal them directly. However, it will allow you flexibility in tossing out heals to others that need it without worrying about your Beacon target as much.

Guardian of Ancient Kings
Cooldown: 5 min
Cost: n/a
Duration: 30 seconds
Effect: Summons a Guardian of Ancient Kings to protect you for 30 sec. While active, your next 5 heals will cause the Guardian to heal the same target for the amount healed be your heal, and friendly targets within 10 yards of the target for 10% of the amount healed.

Guardian of Ancient Kings, due to the length of its cooldown, is best reserved for a damage-intensive portion of the fight, during which you know you will need a bit of extra oomph. Like our AoE heals, the AoE effect of this cooldown best suits it for use on melee or a Tank, but, ultimately, it is simply useful for its effective 100% increase in your healing for 5 heals, which is very useful if a lot of damage is going out.

Avenging Wrath
Cooldown: 3 min (reduced by talents)
Cost: 8% of Base Mana (~1.8k @85)
Duration: 20 seconds
Effect: Increases all damage and healing caused by 20% for 20 sec.

This cooldown, especially if talented to a cooldown of 2 minutes, is best used to help offset the healing reduction of Divine Plea. Still, if you're having trouble healing through a certain portion of the fight it can instead be used to bump up your healing temporarily so that you can keep people alive.

Divine Favor
Cooldown: 3 min
Cost: n/a
Duration: 20 seconds (Increased by a glyph)
Effect: Increases your spell casting haste by 20% and spell critical chance by 20% for 30 sec.

Divine Favor is actually useful now! A notoriously overlooked spell in the past, Divine Favor is probably one of our most useful cooldowns now. Depending on the encounter length, it can be used once, twice, or even three times during particularly long (such as end-boss) encounters. The cooldown, like Avenging Wrath, could be used to off-set a Divine Plea. However, it's also just an effective way to increase your throughput for a little while and works effectively like a mini-heroism. This spell is awesomeness in a button and you should certainly identify places to use it in an encounter, if nothing comes up as obvious for use, then use it to help offset Divine Plea.

Aura Mastery
Cooldown: 2 min
Cost: n/a
Duration: 6 sec.
Effect: Causes your Concentration Aura to make all affected targets immune to Silence and Interrupt effects and improve the effect of all other aura by 100%. Lasts 6 sec.

This cooldown is probably one of the most undervalued cooldowns by those who don't understand Paladins. One might look at it and think of it as a PvP spell if they ignore the last couple lines. The 100% increase to other auras is a HUGE boost for resistance auras, making Aura Mastery an exceptionally useful tool in mitigating large amounts of raid damage from certain raid-wide AoEs. Smart healers can likely identify a spell or two on almost every encounter during which Aura Mastery could be used to help mitigate damage. You should proactively look for ways to use this spell and use it as often as you can during these moments.

Hand of Protection
Cooldown: 5 min
Cost: 6% of Base Mana (~1.4k @85)
Duration: 10 sec
Effect: A targeted party or raid member is protected from all physical attacks for 10 sec, but during that itme they cannot attack or use physical abilities.

This spell is particularly useful for DPS who get on a hot streak and pull threat, though intelligent Paladins may find many alternative uses for this spell on an encounter-by-encounter basis. This spell should almost never be used on a Tank unless, for some reason, you need to force a Tank swap, as the target will become immune to the boss and as such the boss will switch to the next highest aggro target. The spell does not actually eliminate one's threat, however, so if you use it to save someone who has pulled threat, they will still need to actively work on reducing their threat during the time saved. Spellcasters will still be able to cast when affected by this spell, but melee will be unable to attack.

Hand of Salvation
Cooldown: 2 min
Cost: 6% of Base Mana (~1.4k @85)
Duration: 10 seconds
Effect: Places a Hand on the Party or Raid member, reducing their total threat by 2% every 1 sec for 10 sec. (Glyphed: Hand of Salvation no longer permanently reduced threat over time, but instead reduces all threat as long as Hand of Salvation lasts)

This is another useful spell to help DPS who pull quite a bit of threat. While the primary responsibility of threat management lies with Tanks to generate threat and DPS to watch their threat, having this utility at the Holy Paladin's disposal can be invaluable in cutting-edge progression when a DPS might be slightly better geared than a Tank, or in situations of burst where a Tank simply can't keep up initially, by using this cooldown you can help ensure that such moments don't turn into raid wipes.

Cleanse
Cooldown: n/a
Cost: 14% of Base Mana (~3.2k @85)
Duration: n/a
Effect: Cleanses a friendly target, removing 1 Poison effect, 1 Disease affect (Talented: and 1 Magic effect).

Cleanse is a useful spell to Paladins which may end up being necessary in order to control certain encounters. Blizzard loves to use cleansing certain buffs (or sometimes not cleansing them) as a requirement for successfully dealing with an encounter. Even when cleansing isn't an important aspect of an encounter, it is often more mana-efficient to cleanse a debuff off of a party or raid member than to heal them through the damage it might cause. However, because of the mana cost of the ability, be sure that you are not cleansing things which don't need to be cleansed, such as a mana burn on a Feral Druid or an attack speed debuff on a Mage.

Hammer of Justice
Cooldown: 1 min (can be reduced through talents)
Cost: 3% of Base Mana (~702 @85)
Duration: 6 seconds
Effect: Stuns the target for 6 sec.

This spell can be used to help control adds on an encounter and can be used as an interrupt on boss-abilities if absolutely necessary.

Holy Wrath
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Cost: 20% of Base Mana (~4.6k @85)
Duration: 3 seconds
Effect: Sends bolts of holy power in all directions, causing 5277 Holy damage divided among all targets with 10 yds and stunning all Demonds and Undead for 3 sec. (Elementals and Dragonkin too when glyphed)

This spell can be extraordinarily useful utility in controlling adds or trash packs, especially when glyphed to include elementals and demons. Be sure to look for places to use it, though, always remember that your primary responsibility is keeping others alive.

Hand of Sacrifice
Cooldown: 1.5 min
Cost: 6% of Base Mana (~1.4k @95)
Duration: 12 seconds (roughly)
Effect: Places a Hand on the party or raid member, transferring 30% damage taken to the caster. Lasts 12 sec or until the caster has transferred 100% of their maximum health.

Hand of Sacrifice is a situational mitigation tool which you can use to help control healing. Due to the talent Protector of the Innocent, more Paladins should get familiar with using this Cooldown as often as possible as they will already get a lot of free healing on themselves simply by healing others, thus, as long as this ability isn't likely to put them in danger of dying, they can use it as an external mitigation cooldown on a Tank or a party or raid member expected to take heavy damage.

Conclusions
Holy Paladins have a lot of utility and a lot of healing power. Our strengths still lie in healing 1 to 2 targets which makes us fantastic Tank healers. However, we've gained a lot of strength to help us heal on the move and to heal multiple targets simultaneously. Our optimal positioning will be in melee-range, if it's not a detrimental position due to encounter mechanics, this will help facilitate our regen abilities and AoEs and maximize their usefulness.

Keep in mind the concepts of Triage healing and smart spell usage as you heal. The more actively you work with all of the tools available to you, not just your mana regen tools and your heals, the better off you will be in keeping the raid healthy and alive while also not going OOM before the fight is over.

[Chamenas]

Talent Trees
Your Talent choices can end up being a very personal decision. However, with the reduction of Talent trees, we have a lot less wiggle room in which to screw up? Does this mean that Talents have become boring? No, as you will see in this run through of the talents, there are still a few optional talents, like there were before. If anything has suffered, it's the option of going down Prot or Ret as your secondary tree. I cover both trees last, but you will see that, optimally, we take a couple of first Tier talents from them and that's about it.


Often times, Talents off very minute gains, and so even something I recommend as “necessary” may be eschewed by some. Still, the tree I offer is a stable tree and one that I'm assuming that most end-game, raiding Paladins will be using going forward, with only the slightest of differences in 1 to 3 optional talent points.


Tier 1
Arbiter of the Light: (2 Ranks 0/2) Increases the critical effect chance of your Judgement and Templar's Verdict by 6/12%
Protector of the Innocent: (3 Ranks 3/3) Casting a targeted heal on any target, except yourself, also heals you for 1241/2482/3722 to 1427/2854/4282.
Judgements of the Pure: (3 Ranks 3/3) Your Judgement increases your casting and mele haste by 3/6/9% for 1 min.


You'll need at least 5 points in this Tier to progress down the tree, though you will more than likely put 6 points in. Some might opt for only 2 points in Protector of the Innocent, but the heals on yourself for healing others will be far more useful to you in most PvE content than doing a little extra damage with your Judgement spell. Judgements of the Pure is the first of those “must have” talents and most Paladins will opt for all 3 points in it as our heals tend to be slow and 9% haste with essentially 100% uptime is very valuable for only 3 points.


Tier 2
Clarity of Purpose: (3 Ranks 3/3) Reduces the casting time of your Holy Light and Divine Light spells by 0.15/0.3/0.5 sec.
Last Word: (2 Ranks 2/2) Gives your Word of Glory a 30/60% increased critical chance when used on targets with 35% or less health.
Blazing Light: (2 Ranks 0/2) Increases the damage of your Holy Shock and Exorcism by 10/20%.


You need at least 5 points in this Tier to progress down the tree, and that's exactly how many points you should put in. Clarity of Purpose is a talent which gives us free, noticeable amounts of “Haste” on our two lengthiest casting spells, you'll need this talent to help reduce those ridiculous 3 second cast times to something a bit more reasonable. Last Word is a pure throughput talent, but an important one. While Crit isn't always reliable, a healthy dose of it (60%!!!) is more than enough to entice two of our points. The value of this talent is certainly worth it. Blazing Light, on the other hand, while certainly not useless, is probably best left without points placed into it. The extra damage is good for PvP or for soloing, but is less likely to help you in a raid encounter.


Tier 3
Denounce: (2 Ranks 0/2) Reduces the mana cost of Exorcism by 38/75% in addition you have a 25/50% chance when casting Holy Shock to make your next Exorcism spell instant and cost no mana.
Divine Favor: (1 Rank 1/1) Teaches you the spell Divine Favor: Increases your spell casting haste by 20% and spell critical chance by 20% for 20 sec. (Instant cast, 3 min cooldown).
Infusion of Light: (2 Ranks) Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy Shock by 5/10%. In addition, your Holy Shock critical effects reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light or Divine Light by 0.75/1.5 sec.
Daybreak: (2 Ranks) Your Flash of Light, Holy Light, and Divine Light have a 10/20% chance to make your next Holy Shock not trigger a cooldown if used within 12 sec.


Tier 3 is the first Tier inaccessible to other specs after they reach 31 points, and so we begin to see some of the real power of the Holy tree begin to unfold.


As with all Tier progression, you'll need 5 points in this Tier to progress down the tree. Like the previous Tier, you'll likely only be spending 5 points, but you'll be gaining some very powerful utility as a result. I found Denounce to be necessary to effectively soloing as a Holy Paladin, and it certainly has its place in PvP. In PvE raiding, however, it's probably not your best choice. Divine Favor has been changed a lot, making it a very useful cooldown as I explained earlier in my spell section. There's really no reason to not points in it, and you'll need to in order to progress down the tree, assuming you put no points in Denounce. Infusion of Light not only gives you throughput through increased crit chance for Holy Shock, it also helps you gain a bit of specific spell-haste directed at our two lengthiest spells, Holy Light and Divine Light. Infusion of Light is also needed to pick up Speed of Light later. With Holy Shock being such a fundamental spell in our arsenal, Daybreak is an exceptional talent in our arsenal, since it will grant us extra ones. This means extra healing, extra chances at Infusion of Light procs and extra Holy Power.


Tier 4
Enlightened Judgements: (2 Ranks 2/2) Grants hit rating equal to 50/100% of any Spirit gained from items or effects, and increases the range of your Judgement by 5/10 yards. In addition, your Judgement instantly heals you for x to y.
Beacon of Light: (1 Rank 1/1) Teaches you the spell Beacon of Light: The target becomes a Beacon of Light to all members of your party or raid within a 60 yard radius. Each heal you cast on party or raid members will also heal the Beacon for 50% of the amount healed. Only one target can be the Beacon of Light at a time. Lasts 5 min. (6% of Base Mana, Instant Cast, 60 yard range).
Speed of Light: (3 Ranks 3/3) Grants 1/2/3% spell haste and reduces the cooldown of Holy Radiance by 10/20/30 sec. Casting Holy Radiance increases your movement speed by 20/40/60% for 4 sec.
Sacred Cleansing: (1 Rank 1/1) Your Cleanse spell now also dispels 1 Magic effect.


You only need 5 points in this Tier to progress to the next, but most Paladins will end up taking all of the talents in this tree. Enlightened Judgements both makes our Judgements more reliable and keeps us able to cast them, even when we're not exactly in melee range. Since judging is our most effective way of regenning mana, anything that helps us to that end is useful. Beacon of Light is a staple spell of Paladins, allowing us to help keep up a second target while we use our powerful direct heals elsewhere. Speed of Light gives us free spell haste, reduces the cooldown on Holy Radiance, and grants us run speed temporarily when Holy Radiance is activated. The full effect requires 3 points, but it's value that is far from wasted. Sacred Cleansing is effectively optional, but, unless you have a specific reason to not take it, then I would recommend grabbing it. Being able to remove magic debuffs is left to healers, and it's important to have that capability. Even if you know that other healers in your group have the capability, there are plenty of reasons for why they might otherwise be indisposed, making the ability to remove magic debuffs yourself essential.


Tier 5
Conviction: (3 Ranks 3/3) Gives you a 1/2/3% bonus to damage and healing for 15 sec after causing a critical effect from a weapon swing, spell, or ability. This effect stacks up to 3 times.
Aura Mastery: (1 Rank 1/1) Teaches you the spell Aura Mastery: Causes your Concentration Aura to make all affected targets immune to Silence and Interrupt effects and improve the effect of all other auras by 100%. Lasts 6 sec. (Instant cast, 2 min cooldown).
Paragon of Virtue: (2 Ranks 2/2) Reduces the cooldown of Divine Protection by 10/20 sec, Hand of Sacrifice by 15/30 sec and Avenging Wrath by 30/60 sec.


For 3 talent points, you can get a free 9% bonus to healing so long as you get at least one crit every 15 seconds by putting the points into Conviction. Aura Mastery, as mentioned earlier in the spells section, has plenty of value. It's technically optional if you put points into all of the previous Tier and 1 into Paragon of Virtue, but I would recommend taking it, because of its value in so many places. Paragon of Virtue is optional as well, but is yet another recommended talent, as taking it will reduce the cooldown on a number of abilities. Most importantly, it will bring the cooldown of Avenging Wrath in-line with Divine Plea, freeing up Avenging Wrath to be used with every Divine Plea cast.


Tier 6
Tower of Radiance: (3 Ranks) Healing the target of your Beacon of Light with Flash of Light or Divine Light has a 33/66/100% chance to generate a charge of Holy Power.
Blessed Life: (2 Ranks) You have a 50/100% chance to gain a charge of Holy Power whenever you take direct damage. This effect cannot occur more than once every 8 seconds.


Tower of Radiance works in conjunction with Beacon of Light (which is required to get it) by allowing you to generate Holy Power through casting Flash of Light or Divine Light directly on your Beacon target. This free generation of Holy Power comes only at the waste of 50% of your healing. However, since you won't always be able to keep your target alive with 50% of all your direct healing, you will, out of necessity, need to use your emergency heals on them at points anyways. Blessed Life looks like valuable PvE talent until you realize that its effect only procs on Direct damage. This means that incidental damage from boss AoEs will not trigger its effect. Targeted boss abilities such as fireballs or shadow bolts will generate Holy Power through it, but such damage is unreliable and the Holy Power generation can be wasted if it occurs when you're already at 3 Holy Power. As a result, I don't recommend putting any points in Blessed Life. If you've been following my recommendations so far, you shouldn't need to put points in it to open up Light of Dawn.


Tier 7
Light of Dawn: (1 Rank) Teaches you the spell Light of Dawn: Consumes all Holy Power to send a wave of healing energy before you, healing up to 5 of the mosti njured targets in your party or raid within a 30 yard frontal cone for x to y per charge of Holy Power.


Light of Dawn is an instant AoE heal which is explained in the spells section. What's important to note here is that it's our 31 point talent. Because of its uses, you should grab it, even though you'll likely have more than 31 points in the tree anyways.


Prot Tree
Tier 1
Divinity: (3 Ranks 3/3) Increases all healing done by you and all healing effects on you by 2/4/6%.
Eternal Glory: (2 Ranks 2/2) Your Word of Glory has a 15/30% chance not to consume Holy Power.


In the Prot tree there's only two talents which are really of use to Holy Paladins in PvE raid healing, and we'll want to take both of them because of their usefulness. Divinity is a straight increase in Healing Done and Healing Taken, which makes it a very valuable 3 point talent. Eternal Glory is a chance-based talent, which makes its ultimate value iffy, however, the ability to cast multiple Word of Glories in a row, or a Word of Glory and then a Light of Dawn is a very powerful utility to add to your arsenal and thus worth the chancy nature of Eternal Glory.


Ret Tree
Tier 1
Crusade: (3 Ranks 3/3) Increases the damage of your Crsuader Strike, Hammer of the Righteous, and Templar's Verdict by 10/20/30% and the damage and healing of your Holy Shock by 10/20/30%. In addition, for 15 sec after you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor, your next Holy Light heals for an additional 100/200/300%.
Improved Judgement: (2 Ranks 0/2) Increases the range of your Judgement by 10/20 yards.


There's a number of useful talents in the Ret tree. However, because of the fact that we'll want Divinity over any of them, and because we'll probably put more than 31 points into the Holy tree, we can't reach any of the second tier talents. Instead, only Crusade and Improved Judgement are available to us. Crusade helps us while soloing, but a 30% increase to the healing power of our Holy Shock, one of our common heals, is certainly worth 3 points for PvE raiding. Improved Judgements allows us to stand farther back and still judge, which is useful, however, I didn't put any points into it because I needed them elsewhere.


Ultimately, the talents you choose will be up to you. Most talents are fairly straight-forward and obvious, and Holy Paladins only have a couple of points of wiggle-room before you begin to severely gimp yourself by not taking certain needed talents. Still, I have recommended a number of “optional” talents and it's up to you whether or not you deem them useful. Consider your raid situation and your personal needs as you spend these few optional talent points. It's important for you, as an individual, to make the right decision, the decision that is best for you.


Recommended Talents: Holy 33/5/3

[Chamenas]

Miscellaneous
Glyphs
Glyphs are are consumable items which teach you a glyph-ability permanently. They're split into three categories: Minor, Major, and Prime. In order to change a glyph above level 80 you will need Dust of Disappearance which can be bought from Inscription Supplies vendors for 10g or from Inscriptionists.

Prime Glyphs
- Divine Favor: Increases the duration of Divine Favor by 10 sec.
- Holy Shock: Increases the critical effect chance of Holy Shock by 5%.
- Seal of Insight: While Seal of Insight is active, the effect of your healing spells is increased by 5%.
- Word of Glory: Increases the healing done by Word of Glory by 10%

Major Glyphs
- Beacon of Light: Increases the duration of Beacon of Light by 30 sec.
- Divine Plea: Your Divine Plea provides an additional 5% of your total mana.
- Light of Dawn: Reduces the cooldown of Light of Dawn by 10 sec and the amount healed by 20%.
- Cleansing: Reduces the mana cost of your Cleanse by 20%
- Divinity: Your Lay on Hands grants twice as much mana as normal and also grants you as much mana as it grants your target.
- Salvation: Hand of Salvation no longer permanently reduces threat over time but instead reduces all threat as long as Hand of Salvation lasts.
- Long Word: Your Word of Glory heals for 50% less up front, but provides an additional 50% healing over 6 sec.

Minor Glyphs
- Blessing of Kings: Reduces the mana cost of Blessing of Kings by 50%
- Insight - Reduces the mana cost of Seal of Insight by 50%
- Blessing of Might: Reduces the mana cost of Blessing of Might by 50%

So, what glyphs to take?

For Prime glyphs, you have 3 slots and 4 to choose from. What you choose is up to you. I personally chose the following:
Glyph of Word of Glory: We'll be using this heal a lot, 10% added healing to it should not be ignored without reason.
Glyph of Seal of Insight: 5% increased healing to ALL of our healing spells is undeniably valuable, this Glyph is a likely choice of almost any Holy Paladin.
Glyph of Holy Shock: Even if Crit isn't exceptionally needed on our gear, this Glyph is helpful in getting certain procs and keeping Conviction up. If you find you have enough Crit for your needs you might choose Glyph of Divine Favor instead.

Major glyphs are a lot trickier, with a lot more options to choose from. Here's what I chose:
Glyph of Divine Plea: With Divine Plea's nerf, anything to make it better is useful. Mana is at a premium and this Glyph will straight-up give us more mana.
Glyph of Beacon of Light: With how much mana costs, I chose this Glyph because it allows me to easily switch Beacon targets or refresh Beacon in combat without worrying over it's mana cost. Of all my Glyph choices, however, this is probably the one that I would be most likely to switch out.
Glyph of Divinity: Anything that gives us mana is valuable. You should strive to use Lay on Hands at least once every encounter.


There are certainly other good choices, and some, such as Glyph of Cleansing, are likely to be far better on specific encounters. Just remember that if you find you need to use another Glyph, you can easily change it in for the simple cost of a Dust of Disappearance.


Minor Glyphs are very straight-forward. You get 3 spots and there's only really 3 of any use to us:
Glyph of Blessing of Kings
Glyph of Blessing of Might
Glyph of Insight

Addons
What Addons you use is completely up to personal preference. I’m going to mention some Addons that I use, and a few others that I know are popular, even if I don’t use them.

Grid - Grid is an amazing tool for healing. It has a crisp, clean setup for raid unit frames. And, with a bit of configuration, can show you exactly what you want to know about the status of the raid as far as Poison, Disease, and Magic debuffs go. Raidstatusdebuffs is an Addon that uses Grid in order to display debuffs from raid bosses such as Incinerate Flesh or Bone Spike, which is a good way to know who needs heals quick if you miss a raid emote.

Healbot - If a healer doesn’t like or doesn’t use Grid, then there’s a good chance they’re using Healbot instead. I don’t personally use Healbot and so cannot give much information on it at this time, other than the fact that it is an alternative for Grid.

Satrina’s Buff Frames - Although a handy addon for buffs and debuffs in general, I’m mentioning this addon for a specific use that I have found for it with regards to Paladin healing. You gain the ability to create unique buff/debuff frames for pretty much any unit type. You can put them wherever you want and make them gigantic or small if you want. Specifically, I use this addon to help me track Beacon of Light. Grid allows you to track Beacon as well, though it will only show one at a time as an icon. Still, if you, like me, often have trouble focusing on things with timers, and keeping them at 100% uptime, then you will likely want more than one method of tracking Beacon, which, if you let them fall off at an inopportune moment, may likely result in a tank death.

So, how do you set this up?
First, this site will give you all the tools to customize your own SBF frames:
http://evilempireguild.org/SBF/index.php

Now onto setting up your special Beacon frame:

> Type “/SBF options” into your chat box. This should open up a configuration window for SBF.
> On the lower, right-hand side of the window should be a button labeled “New Frame”, click on it
> A new frame should be created in the middle of the screen, more likely than not it is covered by the configuration window, still, its name “SBF #” will still appear through the window and if you click on the little black area around the name, you should find that you can move the frame.
> Make sure that the “General” tab is selected, it’s at the top, all the way to the left.
> The first thing we want to do is give this frame a name, I named it “Beacon”, you could name it whatever you want.
> Right below the Frame Name is a drop-down menu labeled “Frame Unit” Click on this and select “Focus”
> Beside both of these are a number of checkboxes. Uncheck “Show debuffs”, make sure that “Show buffs” is checked off.
> By default, “Whitelist” should be checked off. If it isn’t, make sure it is.
> Next, click on the “Layout” tab, found right next to the “General” one.
> Your current frame is listed at the top, make sure it’s the one you just named. It should be, but if you ever want to edit it in the future, you may need to make sure the current frame is correct.
> Towards the left side, closer to the bottom is a box labeled “Number of buffs” put “1” in for the value, click Apply.
> Click on the tab labeled "Icons"
> Put in 100 for "Icon Size" hit "Apply"
> Click on the tab labeled "Timers"
> Find the "Font size" slider and set it to 21
> On the Right hand side is a "Timer Position" box, set Y to -61 and hit apply.
> Click on the tab labeled “Filters”, this is above “Layout” and skewed slightly to the right.
> In the box “New Filter” enter the following values:
n=Beacon of Light&my

This tells the frame to only show Beacon of Light, and only if it was cast by you.

At this point your frame is finished. Position it in a place where you can see it. I keep mine to the bottom of the screen, right below Grid and next to my Unit frame and my Target’s Unit frame. So long as you have a target focused (presumably a tank), you will be able to keep track of any Beacon of Light spell you have on them, timed and everything. Furthermore, this works well with a macro I will talk about later, which is best used if your Beacon target is your focus target.

Clique: If you’re not using mouseover macros, then you should probably use Clique. It depends on what you’re comfortable with, but this addon interacts well with raid-frame addons like grid, allowing you to simply click on the frame to cast a heal, saving you the time of having to target. It’s very customizable and used by a lot of healers. I do not use it myself and so cannot offer much more information than that.

Recount/Skada: Either of these addons are useful in giving you information in regards to the healing output of you and the other healers in the raid. One must be careful with Recount or Skada, as the information is only as valuable as the understanding of the situation that goes behind it. For instance, it’s a lot easier to get 6k HPS on one fight, and on others you might struggle to break 2k HPS, and yet be no less effective in healing. When less damage goes around, when people overgear fights, or when more healers are added, you will find many things can alter the nature of the situation and thus affect the measured results. Still, with practice and knowledge, you can interpret Recount or Skada information as intended in order to improve your own healing, or find weakspots in the healing in the raid that you might want to address.

Power Bars: My very own AddOn, Power Bars is a resource and power display system. For Paladins it allows for easy customization and configuration of your Holy Power display.

Power Auras: This AddOn is another useful one for displaying when you have certain procs, such as Infusion of Light. If Blizzard's built in proc display system does not satisfy you, then you might try Power Auras which is more customizable, even letting you put in your own images and setting your own animations. Below I will post the Holy Paladin-specific Power Auras material that I use:

Infusion of Light:

Version:3.0.0W; icon:Ability_Paladin_InfusionofLight; buffname:Infusion of Light; x:-115; texture:25; size:0.39

Custom Images: None

Useful Macros
Macros are useful utilities to the game which can either combine a series of commands into one button. They are limited as Blizzard does not want Macros to allow one to automate their character or reduce playing the game to pressing one button. Still, they can do many useful things such as cast spells on things that you aren’t targeting, and cast sequences which do to some extent, allow you to cast many spells by pressing one button.

Adding Macros to this guide
Plenty of people may have useful Macros that they wish to share with the community. If you post or PM me a Macro that I think is useful, then I will add it to this guide, with credit to you of course.

The point of the following macros is to give you a basic template for how you might form multiple macros for various spells. I will try to explain how they work, but I’m not going to get into a lesson or guide on Macro basics.

Mouseover Macros

#showtooltip Spell Name
 /cast [@mouseover, help] [help] [@targettarget, help] [@player] Spell Name
 ex:
 #showtooltip Flash of Light
 /cast [@mouseover, help] [help] [@targettarget, help] [@player] Flash of Light

This macro will allow you to cast Flash of Light on anything that your mouse is hovering owner. This includes: the physical model of the unit, a unit nameplate, a unit frame, a raid frame (such as for an addon like grid). Additionally, if your mouse is not presently over a friendly, healable target, it will instead direct the heal to a friendly target. If a friendly target is also not available, it will direct the heal to a friendly target of the target. If such is also not available it will default the heal to the caster.

I have this macro for most of my heals, my cleanse, etc... I’m definitely a mouseover healer type, and I can hear all the Clique users groan. In any case, this is a VERY handy macro. Especially if you’re not comfortable with Clique but still want to increase your healing reactions.

Focus Macros

#showtooltip Spell Name
 /focus [@focus,nohelp] [@focus,dead]
 /cast [@focus,help] [help] [@targettarget,help] [@player] Spell Name
 ex:
 #showtooltip Beacon of Light
 /focus [@focus,nohelp] [@focus,dead]
 /cast [@focus,help] [help] [@targettarget,help] [@player] Beacon of Light

When using this macro, it will try to cast Beacon of Light on your focus target (if it’s friendly). If you don’t have a focus target, it looks to see if you have a friendly target. If so it casts the spell on them and makes them the focus target. If that doesn’t exist, it will look to see if your target has a friendly target and put the spell on them, however, it will make your target the focus instead of the target of target. If none of those exists, it puts the spell on you, but it only makes you the focus if you are targeting yourself.

When used with SBF, this macro and that addon give you plenty of reasons to make your tank your focus target. You will be able to cast Beacon of Light without ever needing to target the Tank, and SBF will help you keep track of how much time you have left on the spell.

Offensive Macros
The following macro allows you to use a spell on an unfriendly Target of your Target. This is best used with the Judgement spells. Often times your target will not be the enemy, but you will want to refresh your Judgements of the Pure. Rather than waste time trying to target the enemy, as long as your Target is targeting something you can attack, you can judge. It should be noted that your target will change to the attacked target.

#showtooltip Spell Name
 /cast [harm][@targettarget,harm] Spell Name
 ex:
 #showtooltip Judgement
 /cast [harm][@targettarget,harm] Judgement

This will prioritize. If your target is indeed an enemy, then it will cast the Judgement on the enemy first. If, however, your target is not unfriendly, it will then look to your target’s target. If neither are unfriendly, it does not cast.

Notable Links
Holy Paladins BiS list
...

[Chamenas]

[ Reserved for expansion ]

[Chamenas]

Some final notes:
> You may disagree with me on some points in this thread. Disagreement is fine. You may even be able to change my opinion. However, neither the forum administrators nor I tolerate flaming of any kind. Be considerate and civil in your remarks and understand that regardless of your opinion, mine might not change.

> If I have facts wrong, kindly point them out in a post, or, even better, a PM. I will make the changes and give you credit for pointing it out. Undue criticism and other such negativity in pointing out an error won't be appreciated.

> If you have something you would like to add to this guide, then feel free to contact me. I may not always end up putting things in the guide from other members, but I promise to keep an open mind and to, if I feel appropriate, add to this guide with credit given to those who have either inspired such expansions or have given their own time in providing the information for such expansion.

Updates:
12/23 - 12:19am "Added a note to Mastery for clarification on its workings." - Soan
12/22 - 3:25pm "Finished updates to bring the guide in relevance to Cataclysm"
10/13 - 11:32pm "Finished Written and Video Portion of the 4.01 Survival Guide"
10/12 - 9:32am "Removed several sections of the guide in preparation for a new Cataclysm Holy Paladin guide"
7/6 - 1:24am "Updated the Glyphs section. Expect more updates soon."
6/5 - 11:15pm "Updated top 3 Flash of Light-style glyphs to show an alternative" - Magretta
5/31 - 4:55pm "Updated the Enchant Feet slot with additional information on general preferences"
5/21 - 5:44pm "Updated Spells with some information on stacking Beacon of Light" - kintler1
2/16 - 12:57pm "Updated some information on Libram of Veracity"
2/24 - 3:33pm "Updated talents with some information on Improved Devotion Aura vs. Benediction" - Sanctusjoufu
2/15 - 12:09am "Updated some things in regards to Flash of Light gemming, hit vs spirit as the bottom stats, enchanting with exceptional mana, and an error in regards to Nightmare Tear use" - Golijov

[Kazeyonoma]

Stickied for now to get attention, please feel free to send me a PM if this guide has any blaring issues, but be open minded and review/critique the guide as you all see fit.

[Sanctumjoufu]

This was an awsome post. I am new to healing and to the Paladin. You broke it down in a easy to follow way. I only have one question or addon or whatever you would like to call it. It is in reguard to the Prot tree. I chose to put only one point into toughness only so I could get to the 4th Tire. This gave me 5 points left. I Put 2 into Divine Guardian. The other three went into Improved Devotion Aure. I chose this way because it increases the amout healed on any target affected by any of your auras by 6%. The 50% aurmor bonus is a waste, kinda, but I felt like that +6% healing was bette then dumping my remaining points into Toughness. Tell me what you think? Also, thanks for taking the time to write this guild.

Sanctus Joufu

[Chamenas]

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sxA0gM0sVu0tgdxGzubZc

Generally healers put the points into Benediction since the only Paladin that will usually run devo is a tank, and a tank will already have points in it. But, it's certainly an alternative for those last three points.

[Soan]

The thing about Improved Devotion Aura is that the +healing effect applies to all of your auras, not just devotion. The bonus to devo aura can also be helpful in 10s if you don't have a pally tank.

[Chamenas]

The small word "any" eluded me there the first time. As I said, it's certainly an option, but I don't remember suggesting putting points into Toughness over Benediction anyways. I'll go back and look it over just to make sure. I might also add the suggestion tidbit in the guide about Improved Devotion Aura At that portion in the guide. I'm not sure I'll mention it in any video I might make though, in the interest of time. It usually is covered by someone else, including a Tree I believe (I don't think the effects stack), if you don't have a Paladin tank. Whereas Benediction has an overall usefulness regardless.

[Woogie]

Thanks... just read this as im looking at ways to improve my healing.... i was a FoL pally healer and have started moving towards a more HoL based heal style yet couldnt quite make the transition over completey...... ive wondered what stats im missing and i knew i didnt have enough haste..... unfortunately i never conisdered respeccing so i will have to do that and see if that can improve my throughput abit.

As for my gemming i was trying my best to get the socket bonus's and never considered how this may be hurting my actually healing as a whole so that has definately given me something to consider.

Upon reading that the holy shock libram is pretty pants i died a little inside as i recently bought it (admittedly i didnt really look into things too much and it was more to boost my GS and stop people whining) but i may have to go and get the reduced HoL mana cost libram and keep the other one to equip when i need to boost my GS.

Thanks for the guide though.... this has really helped

[Chamenas]

The thing to remember with Holy Light is that you want Int, Int, Int and more Int. Most of the socket bonuses on gear are Spellpower, Crit, or Haste and maybe Mp5? Either way, of those, for Holy Light, the most useful is Haste. Still, even then, getting the full value of Int for the socket (a full +Int Brilliant King's Amber) will mathematically (theorycrafting on EJ for the win!) do more for your throughput than any of the other stats that you might get from the bonus or by "balancing" your gemming with different stats on different gems.

I don't think this is how Blizzard intended gemming to work, but it's certainly how it has occurred. The problem with the Holy Shock libram is that you don't really need spellpower for Holy Light healing. You should have enough spellpower natively from your gear if you're properly geared for an instance, that adding any more results in overheal.

I hope maybe something in my comments can reassure you about decisions that you feel you need to make regarding your healing? I'm glad the guide help, and I thank all of the people who have thus far posted suggestions on how I can improve it.

[Tierax]

including a Tree I believe (I don't think the effects stack), if you don't have a Paladin tank.

You are correct. Tree has the same healing bonus effect, and they do not stack. I do still keep Imp Devo over benediction for 10mans, less worrying about ensuring we have either a tree or a prot pally. (We usually do, but until hard modes I haven't had any issue managing the mana costs of my instant casts.)

[Chamenas]

Updated.

[Playge]

Awesome 101 guide thank you!

[Eravian]

Leveling a Holy Paladin now as my first healer, he's about halfway to level 76. I had noticed that there wasn't a guide on Holy Paladins on here before, so I was glad to see this one pop up! Thanks for the work!

Healing has been an interesting experience so far, especially on a Paladin. My main is a tank, so I never really noticed before, but it makes me appreciate tanks that can hold aggro more than ever before. Healing one or even two people as a Paladin is easy... healing four or five all taking damage at once? :-P Thank goodness for Beacon of Light, Holy Shock, and Infusion of Light.

One quick question for clarification however: I'm probably going to go Holy Light style for raiding, but the preferred gemming for Flash of Light is Nightmare Tear +All the rest Spellpower, or a mix of Intellect and Spellpower? I assume all Spellpower because Flash of Light has such a low mana cost that raising the amount it heals is better then gaining more Int?

[Ereshkigal]

Not spellpower and intellect, but spellpower and critical strike rating. If your Holy shock crits over 50% of the time you get tons of instant FoL casts (and not to mention that the high amount of crit also makes FoL crit way more often, which is always beneficial seeing FoL doesn't heal as much as HL does).

[Chamenas]

You'll want haste until you soft-cap, even as a Flash of Light spec, it'll do more for your throughput than crit. But yes, Spellpower is far more important for a Flash of Light spec than Int. Int isn't something to be disregarded, but you'll get plenty of it on gear anyways. You just want to make sure your gems and enchants focus more on pushing out spellpower.