Holy Paladin Midnight Playstyle and Rotation Guide

General Playstyle

Holy Paladins are typical reactive healers. Unlike proactive healers who rely on set rotations and pre-emptive “ramps” to build up healing before damage occurs, we respond to damage directly as it happens.

The core gameplay of a Holy Paladin is a very straightforward build-and-spend playstyle. We use Holy Power-generating abilities like Holy Shock, Judgment, and Flash Of Light to accumulate Holy Power and then spend it on Light Of Dawn, Word Of Glory, and Shield Of The Righteous.

Remember, the name of the game is Holy Power; the goal is to gain and then spend as much of Holy Power as possible. Here are some things to learn and practice:

1. Never waste Holy Power. If you’re on 5 HP, use it.
2. Use Holy Shock on cooldown; one charge should be on cooldown at all times.
3. Use Flash Of Light when you need healing but can’t spend HP and don’t have Holy Shock

Judgment - This used to be part of our core rotation, but it’s been nerfed significantly. It should only be used for damage and triggering Consecration via Righteous Judgment. If you need healing, it's better to just cast Flash Of Light.

Holy Light - This is the most powerful single-target heal in the game; the downside is that it costs a lot of mana. Don’t be afraid of using it, it can and will save lives. Just be mindful of your mana bar, especially in Raid. On the flip side, if you find yourself having too much mana, this is a sign that you’ve been playing too conservatively and haven’t used Holy Light enough. Unfortunately, there is no recommended Holy Light per minute number I can give you; this is simply something you have to get a feel for by playing.

Spending Holy Power

In Raid, Holy Power should mostly be spent on Light Of Dawn, unless you need single-target healing, in which case, spend it on Eternal Flame.

In M+, Holy Power will mostly be spent on Eternal Flame, but if the entire party is taking AoE damage evenly, spend it on Light Of Dawn instead.

If you don’t need healing, spend Holy Power on Shield Of The Righteous to deal damage. This will also restore you 1.2% mana.

Cooldown Usage

Avenging Wrath is very unique since it is a healing and damage cooldown. You basically want to use it on cooldown and only delay it when it’s assigned to a specific event in a Boss fight by your Raid Leader or Healing Officer. For Mythic+, you need your own timing where you and/or your group need extra healing throughput.

Aura Mastery is mainly assigned to specific points in the fight by your raid leader or healing officer. If that’s not the case, use it right before big raid-wide damage hits.

Divine Toll - is a great burst heal with a short cooldown that will fill your Holy Power bar. Use it liberally, but don’t waste it. Generally, you want to keep it on cooldown as much as possible; the only reason you should hold it is if you know that a damaging event is going to happen soon.

Beacon of Virtue - While its short cooldown might make it tempting to use on cooldown, doing so can quickly drain your mana. Yes, it should be used often, but you have to be aware of damage patterns and only cast it when you know you’re going to get value out of it.

While figuring out the ideal timing to use Beacon Of Virtue, be aware of these two talents:

• Pillars Of Light - this will do some respectable healing as soon as you apply Virtue
• Light's Protection - 5% damage reduction to every target with Virtue

Here's how to get the most value out of Virtue:

1. Build 5 Holy Power before the damage hits
2. Apply Beacon Of Virtue right after the first tick of damage; this way you take full advantage of both Pillars Of Light and Light's Protection talents.
3. As soon as the damage hits, press Eternal Flame/Word Of Glory
4. Cast Holy Shock
5. Cast Eternal Flame/Word Of Glory again

Divine Shield - 8 seconds of full immunity. The obvious and most common way to use this will be to hold it and use it to save yourself in an emergency. Another way to use it is to skip mechanics, for example, there are many soak mechanics in the game that can be solo’d if you just pop a bubble and do it by yourself. But you can also use bubble more aggressively, as a healing cooldown. If your party is taking a lot of damage, you can pop a bubble and simply stand your ground for 8 seconds, focusing on nothing else but healing.

Blessing Of Protection - This is a great cooldown that often gets overlooked because it's “only” a partial bubble (it only gives immunity against physical damage). But a partial bubble is still a very strong ability. Not only does it give complete immunity to any physical damage, it will also dispel any physical debuffs, such as bleed,s and save people from unintentional aggro (just don’t use it on your tank).

Blessing Of Sacrifice - 30% DR is a very powerful ability. The way you use Sac is obvious: if someone is about to take a lot of single-target damage, cast Sac on them. What’s less obvious, however, is the downsides to the paladin. Reduced damage to an ally is instead diverted to the paladin, and while the paladin can’t die from this damage, as it will fall off at 20%, it can still put you in a very dangerous situation where any other source of damage can easily finish you off. To avoid this, don't cast Sac on someone if you know you’re about to take potentially lethal damage yourself, and while Divine Purpose won't help in reducing damage received from Blessing Of Sacrifice, you can absorb all of it with a Divine Shield.

Mastery and Positioning

Holy Paladin Mastery makes it so we do increased healing based on how close we are to our target, being fully efficient at 10 yards. Don’t play around this.

Beacon Of The Lightbringer makes it so our Mastery works in relation to our Beacon targets as well. This is why you should always have a Beacon on someone in the range stack if you yourself are standing in melee. This way, melee camp benefits from being close to you directly, and range camp benefits from being close to a Beacon.

Further, not only should you NOT play around Mastery, but in Midnight, you’re not really locked in melee either. All of our healing can now be done from range, so the biggest priority in positioning is simply standing somewhere safe.