Playstyle & Rotation
General Playstyle
Holy Paladins are typical reactive healers. Unlike proactive healers who rely on set rotations and preemptive “ramps” to build up healing before damage occurs, we respond directly to damage as it happens.
The core gameplay of a Holy Paladin revolves around a straightforward build-and-spend playstyle. We use Holy Power generating abilities like Holy Shock and Judgement to accumulate Holy Power, which is then spent on abilities like Word of Glory and Light of Dawn.
If you're new to playing a Holy Paladin, the first essential skill to master is to always keep at least one charge of Holy Shock on cooldown and ensuring you are consistently spending your Holy Power.
Since Paladins don't rely on a specific “ramp” sequence, our gameplay focuses on following a priority list of spells rather than memorizing complex rotations.
Priority Lists
- Spend Holy Power at 5 Holy Power
- Divine Toll
- Holy Shock (1st charge)
- Judgment
- Holy Shock
- Spend Holy Power
- Flash of Light
In practice this will mostly come down to Holy Shock, Judgment and spending Holy Power, with Flash of Light being used when you can’t press any of the former.
Holy Light isn’t included in the priority list because it’s a very strong single-target heal that costs a lot of mana, so it should be used sparingly.
Spending Holy Power
In Raid most of your Holy Power should be spent on Light of Dawn, while Eternal Flame/Word of Glory should only be used situationally when single-target healing is needed, or to trigger Empyrean Legacy.
In M+ healer DPS matters a lot more than it does in raid, as a result, if you don’t need Holy Power to heal your allies you should be spending it on Shield of the Righteous to deal damage.
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 the 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 when you know big raid-wide damage is incoming.
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:
- Build 5 Holy Power before the damage hits
- 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.
- As soon as the damage hits, press Eternal Flame / Word of Glory
- Cast Holy Shock
- Cast Eternal Flame / Word of Glory again