holy paladins, tell me your tricks

[Deleted]

I've recently made a paladin, for a raiding team that asked me to join. I've been reading a lot about gear, spells, talents etc, and have a fair idea of what my buttons do What I can't find is some experienced holy paladins advice. instead of detailed spell information, I'm looking for some descrition of what it is paladins look out for while healing. I've only just dinged 85 and am supposed to be healin heroics soon, so I'm kind of thrown into the deep end. I have raid healing experience, but on my holy priest, which is rather different than paladin healing. Any small glimpse of a holy paladin raiders thoughts, tricks and such would be most helpfull and appreciated!

[Deleted]

I have not healed any DS HC yet, mainly cause I stopped playing after clearing it on normal. It depends on if you are mainly tank or raid healing, though with your Holy Radiance it will be probably raid as we excel anyone else with that atm. At least when I raided, wich was mainly using Holy Shock for Holy Power, then HR on one target, then HR on another target, using LoD, and continue. Pop the CD's when needed, on more heavier hitting phases. Ofc have beacon on a tank.

One importent thing is to learn when to pop Divine Plea to regain mana. As it gives you a 50% healing reduction, it's importent to not use it when the largest spikedamages comes (especially if you are tank healer). So read up tacts on bosses, and when you see a space of less damage, pop it there. God lord that they reduce it's effect lol.

Though Im not one of those pro and elit raiders, so I might be doing something wrong. However, I hope it somewhat right and do give some helpfull feedback. : )

[Dejin]

One of the key things for me is probably to learn to use the cooldowns effectively. When I first started healing on the paladin there was so many times that someone died but I probably could have saved them if I popped guardian or if I chose divine favor over avenging wrath. Don't be scared to use cooldowns, better to waste them and get a feel for it than to not use them at all. Exactly what spells you use will probably depend on your gear, the fight, the raid difficulty and whether your in 10/25 man.

[Deleted]

One of the key things for me is probably to learn to use the cooldowns effectively. When I first started healing on the paladin there was so many times that someone died but I probably could have saved them if I popped guardian or if I chose divine favor over avenging wrath. Don't be scared to use cooldowns, better to waste them and get a feel for it than to not use them at all. Exactly what spells you use will probably depend on your gear, the fight, the raid difficulty and whether your in 10/25 man.

Aye, pretty much this. Remember when I started to raid, and was afraid of using my CD's wrong, so I ended up not using them. xD A bit wiser today, luckely.

[Deleted]

yes I think using the right cooldowns at the right time is the thing I could practice on. I wish there were healing dummies! how hard could it be to make a bunch of dummies that lose health randomly and you get to practice your healing?

Usually when the advice comes from the "elite and Pro raiders" I find it difficult to read it because I'm not used to all the abbrivations yet, so common sense advice is really appreciated. I have to start somewhere

Thanks for sharing, I hope there's more to come

[Dejin]

I would suggest checking out the holy paladin sticky: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ated-for-4-3-3

After reading through it myself, I think it's pretty good!

[Carolenethil]

yes I think using the right cooldowns at the right time is the thing I could practice on. I wish there were healing dummies! how hard could it be to make a bunch of dummies that lose health randomly and you get to practice your healing?

Usually when the advice comes from the "elite and Pro raiders" I find it difficult to read it because I'm not used to all the abbrivations yet, so common sense advice is really appreciated. I have to start somewhere

Thanks for sharing, I hope there's more to come

I have done a healer for every healing class. I decided to stick with my paladin because, tbh, it's my favorite. Best word of advice to you: don't lock yourself into a role. As a paladin, you are PRIMARILY a tank healer. One of the biggest misconceptions made by alot of raiders is that if you are a tank healer, you are only a tank healer. No, just means your priority is the tank. Help out your raid healer and help top off people that are low.

DO NOT use healing addons like Vuhdoo. Use something like Grid and get used to mouseover macros and keybinding. You will have a faster reaction time.

So these are basic tips. As for your paladin, it's all about reactions. Yes you might have a shaman in raid but keep this in mind: if you can get away with it use a resistance aura as this is your best aura to use with one of your cds, Aura Mastery. If you have to, use concentration aura and then swap if there is alot of heavy damage going on and the crap is hitting the fan.

Don't be selfish with the beacon. Don't feel like you only have to keep it on the tank. When I do heroic morchok, I found it's more effective to put it on my priest and keep rolling my heals on the tank and the other melee. Why? that priest always gets booty slammed.

This is all basic stuff, the rest you will learn as you go from experience. Just keep playing around. It's the easiest healing class there is and quite simple to pick up. Just make sure you keep judgement up and keep booty slamming targets with your hammer so you keep your mana up. Divine Light and Holy light are going to be your primary heals but don't be afraid to use Flash if you have to. For the love of god and all that is holy (hahaha pun), DON'T FORGET TO USE YOUR HOLY SHOCK TO HEAL EVERY TIME IT'S OFF CD and use your word of glory. These heals are amazing, glyph for them. After all, as long asyou have judgement you will have a never ending supply of mana. I only have went oom a few times and that was because the other healer I was with like to sit on his hands and let me do all the work.

[kelnorath]

Keep Judgement up, obviously. This isn't as applicable for raids, but in heroics melee mobs when not casting for some Seal of Insight mana. As stated above, Beacon doesn't necessarily have to go on the tank. If your heroic group finder gives you a shit DK that takes more damage than the tank, beacon him until he gets booted or his mom calls him for dinner.

As gear in Cata got better, I found HL being less and less viable and WoG doing most of my heavy lifting. Get the Eternal Glory talent if you don't have it; two quick WoGs can bring a tank from 40% to max for free. I didn't even bother to bind/use FoL, I'd recommend the same to you. Don't get stingy about popping Divine Favor often; 20sec is a long uptime. I try to use Divine Favor/Ancient Kings/Wings separately but many pallies use them together, especially DF/Wings.

When I burn Ancient Kings, I try to avoid any HS/HL casts until it's up. A 40k heal doubled is worth a lot more than a 12k heal doubled.

[kavada]

DO NOT use healing addons like Vuhdoo.

Umm, this is just bad advice. VuhDo is a good healer addon and I highly recommend it. That said, figure out a raid frames addon that you like and watch some youtube videos about configuring it.

For heroic healing, the most important aspect you need to be aware of is the fight itself. Know each fight, know where you need to be standing, know when you need to move, know when to use cooldowns and when to re-gen.

Lastly, read this: http://www.icy-veins.com/holy-paladin-pve-guide

[Kurzior]

Get used to using ALL of your cooldowns. Hand of Sacrifice/Protection/Freedom/Salvation especially, as a lot of people don't think about these that often. Divine protection too, for 2 reasons. First, its a nice damage reduction to lessen the healing load on yourself or your healing partners. Second, its nice to have in your back pocket for a quick sprint to reposition or kite something, due to the Speed of Light talent.

GoAK - Don't waste it. Don't use HS as a heal while this is active. Burn it by casting it on a mob or boss to generate HP, and try to double your HP by getting a crusader strike off. GoAK should nearly always be used on either 3-charge WoG or Divine Light. HS and HL just waste the effectiveness of the cooldown.

Divine Plea - early and often, but plan out when you want it. It decreases your healing capability, so using it during a heavy damage phase actually makes you spend more mana and hurts you in the long run. Time it so its either during down-time or lighter damage phases. If you can't do that, consider covering it with Avenging Wrath to balance the effect.

Mana Potions - get them, use them, love them. Especially on mana intense fights, I can't begin to tell you how nice it is to have an extra 10k waiting to be used. Even more if you can manage to use Concentration Potions instead, although they require you to stop healing for a brief time and may not be usuable depending on the situation.

Avenging Wrath (wings), Divine Favor, Aura Mastery - early and often, although in the case of AM, try to plan it out with your other available raid cd's so you aren't caught unprepared for a large hit.


General tricks:
Pipeline casting - some people have different names for it, but it boils down to starting your cast before the target takes damage, and then deciding whether to cancel it or let the heal land. Maybe you're healing a blood dk and you aren't sure if he has a Blood Shield up. If he doesn't take the hit, you have time to cancel your cast a save the mana for later. Being able to do this well will help your healing efficiency quite a bit. It also makes a big difference if you know exactly where and when the damage is coming on a given fight.

Positioning - Know where you want to be for each part of the fight. Preferably, you want to be near an enemy mob (allowing you to melee for free mana), within range of as many raid members as possible, and somewhere that you can easily move to your next position as quickly as possible.

Beacon swapping - on most fights, this isn't beneficial or necessary, but on occasion, its amazing. The perfect example is Spine. By swapping beacon to new applications of Searing Plasma, you can maximize your effective throughput and efficiency far more than other healers can on that fight. This is also somewhat helpful on fights with tank swaps, such as Blackhorn. The thing to remember is that beacon does cost mana and time to swap, so make sure to pick your targets wisely.

KB sniping - its more relevant in PvP, but the buff to HL from the Crusade talent is pretty substantial and shouldn't be ignored. If you can manage to get the killing blow on an add during a boss fight, you get a cheap, relatively fast 300% buffed HL, which copies 100% to your beacon target. In the grand scheme, its not much, but every little bit helps. (Note: its not a bad idea to toss out a Holy Wrath on blood adds during madness, as spellweave procs can easily snag a KB for you if its timed well.)

[Obsession]

Don't put your beacon on a priest on Morchok, no matter how hard hes getting hit every time the stomp comes, he is still taking less damage than a tank. Show me WoL supporting the opposite and I will never post advice again. There are times you don't want it on a tank, sure, but if you just switched to paladin the time isn't now; maybe an exception for spine.

Using cooldowns "early and often" sounds wrong, if you mean plan out your healing timers based on phases in the boss to maximize the amount of times you will use it without wasting it, yes; if you mean use it on cooldown so you can have it used a lot on fights even if it isn't necessary; no. Healing is all about decision making and planning, cooldown usage and decision making can separate the great from the best.

Divine plea, make a /cancelaura Divine Plea macro, being able to turn it off right before a cast finished to miss a tick or two has saved tanks on multiple occasions for me. Turning it off right before that divine light is done casting to not have have that important DL nerfed has been the difference between death and life in multiple occasions for me. It is something I am sure a lot of people don't do and should. Other important things about plea: Use it before conc potting and asking priests to hymn of hope for the 15% extra max mana before using it is good. Using DP in between abilities will make you

VuhDo is the best, most people who have given everything fair chances will agree, remember it is human nature to not like change so give it 2 weeks if you try it. Grid is ok but make sure you have GridStatusRaidDebuff. No matter what addon you use, make sure you can clearly know what internal/external buffs, and important debuffs are on the players.


I have done most roles in every fight on every healer with my paladin being my main. If you have any questions specific questions or want a comparison or something send me a PM, I'm not good at general advice without sending like an arrogant, condescending douchebag so I'll just be done after those.

[Archibalde]

DO NOT use healing addons like Vuhdoo. Use something like Grid and get used to mouseover macros and keybinding. You will have a faster reaction time.

There's really nothing that stops you from doing that with VuhDo. I have all of my healing spells as mouseover macros, and only click on people's names to dispel, use Hand of Protection or Lay on Hands. It comes down to personal preferences... As long as it's effective, that is.

[Subbversion]

I have done a healer for every healing class. I decided to stick with my paladin because, tbh, it's my favorite. Best word of advice to you: don't lock yourself into a role. As a paladin, you are PRIMARILY a tank healer. One of the biggest misconceptions made by alot of raiders is that if you are a tank healer, you are only a tank healer. No, just means your priority is the tank. Help out your raid healer and help top off people that are low.

DO NOT use healing addons like Vuhdoo. Use something like Grid and get used to mouseover macros and keybinding. You will have a faster reaction time.

So these are basic tips. As for your paladin, it's all about reactions. Yes you might have a shaman in raid but keep this in mind: if you can get away with it use a resistance aura as this is your best aura to use with one of your cds, Aura Mastery. If you have to, use concentration aura and then swap if there is alot of heavy damage going on and the crap is hitting the fan.

Don't be selfish with the beacon. Don't feel like you only have to keep it on the tank. When I do heroic morchok, I found it's more effective to put it on my priest and keep rolling my heals on the tank and the other melee. Why? that priest always gets booty slammed.

This is all basic stuff, the rest you will learn as you go from experience. Just keep playing around. It's the easiest healing class there is and quite simple to pick up. Just make sure you keep judgement up and keep booty slamming targets with your hammer so you keep your mana up. Divine Light and Holy light are going to be your primary heals but don't be afraid to use Flash if you have to. For the love of god and all that is holy (hahaha pun), DON'T FORGET TO USE YOUR HOLY SHOCK TO HEAL EVERY TIME IT'S OFF CD and use your word of glory. These heals are amazing, glyph for them. After all, as long asyou have judgement you will have a never ending supply of mana. I only have went oom a few times and that was because the other healer I was with like to sit on his hands and let me do all the work.

You don't gain mana from using judgement anymore. Seal of insight was changed so that you only get mana from melee swings. Judging is pretty useless.

[natijs4]

You don't gain mana from using judgement anymore. Seal of insight was changed so that you only get mana from melee swings. Judging is pretty useless.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=54151

I hate 9% haste and 30% more regen from Spirit too.

[Deleted]

If you can't do that, consider covering it with Avenging Wrath to balance the effect.

I agree with everything you've written except this. The only time I'd ever consider popping wings with DP is if there is nothing else I can do, it really isn't advisable to ever do it. Other than that, some really good info there.

If you're scared of popping DP and worrying about the tank taking damage, cast Hand of Sacrifice on the tank before you pop it. I also have it macro'd to say in chat that I won't be healing for the next 9 seconds. This won't save your tank if he takes a mass of damage but will help mitigate some of it.

Big advice for me is getting used to key bindings, if everything is second nature then you're fully focused on healing people and not looking where to press a cooldown.

[Deleted]

Spamm Holy Radiance.

[brutallord]

Spamm Holy Radiance.

sad but true
but i don't see this as a problem
chain heals and poh are spammable too

[Archibalde]

I hate 9% haste and 30% more regen from Spirit too.

I think he meant that the actual judgement spell doesn't give mana back and shouldn't be used on cooldown anymore. You only need to use it to refresh the haste and spirit buff.

[Gringgotts]

Make sure you're at 3 holy power before you use divine plea or your concentration potion. That way you can quickly cancel them and heal the tank if the need arises.

This is the spec I currently use:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sMIbzrkuufdhbZc
you can take a point out of Blessed Life, Sacred Cleansing or Last Word if you really want that 3rd point in protector of the innocent. The third point in PotI is worth about 650hps, but keep in mind that some of it will be over heal. I like last word because I run 10 mans and use WoG pretty heavily. Blessed life is a weaker talent, but it is still useful, most bosses have some form of AoE so it basically amounts to a free point of holy power every 8 seconds.

I wouldn't recommend using a pursuit of justice spec for anything except Hagara or Blackhorn. There really aren't a lot of mechanics you have to move for in Dragonsoul. The only other fight that has a mechanic where you as a healer would have to move is Madness Heroic. You get speed of light anyway, so you'll always be able to move out of things very quickly. In almost every situation it's better to stagger your cool downs, though there are exceptions. One exception is Spine of Deathwing where it would provide more throughput to pop cooldowns together, and as a result you would clear debuffs faster and more efficiently.

Don't be scared of putting your sac all over the tank. Most tanks will be more than happy to have your sac on them for a brief amount of time, and you will usually be fine, even on high damage abilities like impale and hour of twilight.

Melee for mana from seal of insight! Crusader strike and judgement both do not reset the swing timer, so you can use both while meleeing. Healing will reset the swing timer so really only melee when you don't have to heal. Swing timer on most healing weapons is 2.2 seconds, so you would need to stop healing for almost two global cooldowns to get an insight proc.

The most important job for all healers is to select the proper heal for the task. Get a feel for each fight and what heals you can get away with casting. The other really important job is managing mana, which ties into selecting the proper heal for the task.
Holy paladins have one third job and that is managing holy power. In terms of efficiency you would always want to spend your 3 holy power before casting a holy shock or holy radiance, or DL/FoL on tank. In terms of being able to react to or predict damage you may want to delay spending the holy power to better handle the situation.

A guy above said this "I didn't even bother to bind/use FoL"
No, just no. If you're not using flash of light at all you're doing it wrong. It is certainly a situation spell that will get less experienced healers into trouble with mana, but not using it is a good way to let your raid take dirtnaps.

[Deleted]

Thanks all for the wonderfull info. I'm learning much from each reply. If only to remember to read up on abbrivations I healed DS HC in my crappy gear yesterday and, although I'm quite behind the other healers (who have 397 gear as a minimum) I have greatly improved since the last raid. I've been playing with my cooldowns a lot, and will swap to mouse-over macro's soon. I just don't want to do that on a raid day because I'd rather suck in LFR if it don't work properly. I still stick with the blizz frames, they have improved so much from what it used to be, and I have not come across anything they can't do that I want them to do.

It seems to me I have an immense amount of cooldowns, and I find it hard to choose between them sometimes. That's just practice I suppose.