Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 Spells/Abilities
3 Talents
4 Glyphs
5 Stats
6 Gearing
7 Consumables
8 Change Log
1. Introduction
1. Introduction
This guide will be intended for raiding Holy Paladins. It may likely be of use to people running 5 man content, but it is targeted primarily at raiders. For the 5.4 iteration, I will talk about changes going from a 5.3 to 5.4.
I currently raid with Static which is a Heroic 25 man raid. Therefore all of my experience and thoughts on healing come from Heroics 25's.
I will try to give my opinions on any topic that is important for healing, but keep in mine that much of what I say is an OPINION.
List of Changes
I discuss all the changes in depth throughout the guide, but this is a quick list of the major changes coming with the patch.
General
Sanctity of Battle now also affects the cooldown of Holy Shock.
Seal of Insight no longer has a chance to restore mana on attacks.
Turn Evil now has a 15-second cooldown.
Holy
Mastery: Illuminated Healing no longer activates from periodic healing effects.
Divine Plea no longer reduces the amount of healing done, and now restores mana based on the Paladin’s Spirit.
Guardian of the Ancient Kings (Holy) now has a cooldown of 3 minutes (down from 5 minutes), and summons a guardian that heals the ally that the Paladin healed for 100% (up from 10%) of the amount healed, but no longer heals nearby friendly targets.
Holy Insight now increases the effectiveness of Eternal Flame, Light of Dawn, and Word of Glory by 50%. Effectiveness of other heals are still increased by 25%.
Holy Radiance now functions like a smart heal, healing the 6 most injured friendly targets within range, and minor guardians are no longer targeted (Wild Imps, Bloodworms, Snakes from Snake Traps, etc.). There has been no change to the total amount of healing granted by the ability.
Holy Shock's mana cost has been reduced by 50%.
Judgment for Holy Paladins now costs 12% of base mana to cast (up from 5% of base mana).
Talents
Burden of Guilt has been replaced with a new talent called Evil is a Point of View.
New Talent: Evil is a Point of View. Evil is a Point of View allows the Paladin to use Turn Evil on players and beasts.
Eternal Flame's periodic heal-over-time effect now heals for 40% more.
Execution Sentence will now immediately damage the target for 5 times the amount of damage that had been dealt by Execution Sentence's most recent periodic effect when dispelled.
Stay of Execution will now immediately heal the target for 5 times the amount of healing that had been dealt by Stay of Execution's most recent periodic effect when dispelled.
Hand of Purity now reduces damage taken from harmful periodic effects by 80% (up from 70%) and reduces damage taken from harmful periodic effects that cannot be prevented by immunities by 40% (up from 0%).
Light's Hammer now functions like a smart heal, healing the 6 most injured friendly targets within range, and minor guardians are no longer targeted (Wild Imps, Bloodworms, Snakes from Snake Traps, etc.). There has been no change to the total amount of healing granted by the ability.
Sacred Shield
Holy: Sacred Shield now applies its damage absorption shield immediately, can be active on more than one target at a time, but the talent now costs mana and has 3 charges with a 10-second recharge.
Protection: Sacred Shield is 30% less effective.
Sanctified Wrath
Holy: Sanctified Wrath now also increases the critical strike chance of Holy Shock by 20%.
Protection: Sanctified Wrath now causes Judgment to generate 2 Holy Power instead of 1 while Avenging Wrath is active.
Selfless Healer in addition to its current effects, now also causes Judgment to generate a charge of Holy Power for Holy Paladins. Stacks of Selfless Healer now reduce the cast time, mana cost, and improve the effectiveness of Divine Light, Flash of Light, and Holy Radiance.
Bastion of Glory will now apply Selfless Healer's bonus to healing to the casting Paladin as well as other targets and consume all stacks of Bastion of Glory in the process.
Unbreakable Spirit has been simplified. It now reduces the cooldown on Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Lay on Hands by 50%.
Glyphs
New Major Glyphs
Glyph of Divine Shield: Removing harmful effects with Divine Shield heals the Paladin for each effect removed. This heal cannot exceed a percentage of the Paladin's maximum health.
Glyph of Hand of Sacrifice: Hand of Sacrifice no longer transfers damage taken by the target to the Paladin.
Major Glyphs
Glyph of Denounce now causes Holy Shock to reduce the cast time of the next Denounce by 0.5 seconds, and the effect can stack up to 3 times.
Glyph of Divine Plea now reduces the amount of mana restored and cooldown of Divine Plea by 50%.
Glyph of Rebuke has been replaced with Glyph of Devotion Aura.
Glyph of Devotion Aura causes Devotion Aura to no longer affect party or raid members, but the cooldown is reduced.
Glyph of the Battle Healer has been redesigned. The glyph now causes Seal of Insight to no longer heal the Paladin. Instead, a nearby raid or party member will receive healing for 30% of the amount the Paladin would have received from Seal of Insight.
Glyph of Turn Evil has been replaced with Glyph of Burden of Guilt.
Glyph of Burden of Guilt causes Judgment to reduce the target's movement speed by 50% for 2 seconds.
2. Spells/Abilities
Healing Spells
Seal of Insight:
Now present on our stance bar instead of an actual spell. Improves healing by 5%, increases Spell Haste by 10% and allows melee hits to replenish health. No longer provides mana, so it is not necessary to stay in melee range at all. The buff to Divine Plea should make up for the lost mana from this.
Boundless Conviction:
Allows us to store an extra 2 Holy Power for a maximum of 5. No spell will ever consume more than 3 through, so this will allow you to pool an extra 2 Holy Power at any given time to quickly use two Holy Power heals (with a HS weaved in).
Beacon of Light:
Allows our spells to heal two targets at once. Can generate Holy Power through Tower of Radiance by use of Flash of Light and Divine Light. No longer has a duration, but has a three second cooldown.
Holy Light:
Cheap Heal. Should be used in most filler situations, especially with mana being so rough at low gear levels.
Flash of Light:
Quick expensive heal. Generates 1 Holy Power if used on the Beacon target. Will likely not be used often unless paired with Selfless Healer (Will talk about this more later)
Divine Light:
Our hard hitter. Generates 1 Holy Power if used on Beacon target. Also likely wont see much use at the beginning of the expansion because of mana problems. It should definitely be used more than Flash of Light though, and as mana gets better should be our go to spell for healing large amounts on a single target.
Holy Shock:
Strong single target heal. 6 second cooldown. Generates 1 Holy Power and should be used on cooldown to maximize Holy Power gains and Infusion of Light procs. If used after a Holy Radiance it will gain an AoE splash effect in addition to its single target heal. Cooldown is now lowered by Haste.
Word of Glory:
Holy Power consuming single target heal. 1.5 second cooldown. This spell is our primary Holy Power consuming heal for single target. It should be used whenever we have 3+ Holy Power and need a quick strong heal.
Holy Radiance:
Heals target for modest amount and spreads 50% of that heal to nearby allies. Generates 1 Holy Power. The heal over time aspect has been removed, and as such the spell will see much less use than it did during Cataclysm. It does have a new synergy with Holy Shock through Daybreak though. This spell is pretty mana heavy and should not be spammed excessively.
Light of Dawn:
Holy Power consuming AoE heal. Heals 6 lowest health allies withing 30 yards. No longer has a positional requirement and as such is much easier to use. This should be our Holy Power heal when multiple people in our group need health. In most situations using this heal will also provide more heals through Beacon of Light than Word of Glory will.
Healing Cooldowns
Divine Plea:
Restores mana based off of your spirit with a bottom amount of about 12%. No longer diminishes healing, so can be used whenever necessary.
Avenging Wrath:
Increases healing by 20% over 20 seconds. The baseline spell works just as it does on live with the exception of having a 3 minute cooldown now, but through talents and glyphs it gains some extra potency (I'll talk about that stuff later). In its baseline form it is still a very powerful throughput cooldown that should be used in any situation that calls for extra healing.
Divine Favor:
Increases spell casting Haste by 20% and spell critical chance by 20% for 20 seconds. The glyph to increase the duration of this cooldown to 30 seconds no longer exists, so it will retain its normal 20 seconds. Other than that, this cooldown is still one of our strongest for healing as the extra speed lets us get more heals off while the critical chance can make them extremely hard hitting. Be warned that it doesn't have a mana cost reduction as we upgrade out of Tier 13, so spamming spells with this up can burn through mana quickly.
Guardian of Ancient Kings:
This spell has been completely reworked. The cooldown is now 3 minutes (down from 5) and it now simply heals allies for 100% of what you heal them for. Seems to me that it now is simply another throughput cooldown and lost a lot of the intricacy that the extra Haste gave this spell.
Lay on Hands:
Heals a target for an amount equal to your maximum health. Cannot be used on targets with Forbearance and it will cause Forbearance for 1 minute. This is an incredible spell to use in emergency situations when tanks get low on health to quickly get them back to full. Through glyphs it can also provide mana and its cooldown can be decreased through talents. (Again, Ill talk about these more later)
Utility/Raid Cooldowns
Devotion Aura:
Grants immunity to silence effects and reduces spell damage taken by 20% for 6 seconds. This spell is a combination of our old Aura Mastery and Resistance Aura, but it now has a 3 minute cooldown. The main bonus of this spell will be the spell damage reduction for your raid group. In fights with periods of heavy spell damage we will want to use this to make the damage more manageable. Can be glyphed for a shorter cooldown if there is a scenario where you need it for just you, although it will likely never be worth it to do so.
Hand of Sacrifice:
Transfers 30% of the damage taken by the target to the paladin for 12 seconds. This is a very powerful cooldown and one that you should be prepared to use during periods of heavy damage on your tank. If used in combination with Divine Shield, this will help you keep the tank alive without doing any damage to yourself. This can be glyphed to reduce the damage reduction to 20%, but it will no longer be transferred.
Cleanse:
Cleanses a target, removing all Poison, Disease, and Magic effects. The Magic removal for this spell is now baseline for Holy, you don't need a special talent to have it remove magic. There are multiple magic effects spread through the 5 man instances and raids. Keep this spell bound somewhere you can easily use it, but remember that it now has a higher mana cost and 8 second cooldown.
Divine Protection:
Reduces Magical Damage taken by 40% for 10 seconds. Can be glyphed to make the mitigation 20% Physical and 20% Magical. This spell should be used often to mitigate incoming damage on yourself and make it easier to keep up the group.
Divine Shield:
Protects you from all damage for 8 seconds. This spell can see use in situations where there is a large amount of raid damage and you want to be able to heal the raid without worrying about yourself or to mitigate damage from abilities aimed directly at you. The immunity from this ability will also mitigate damage blocked by Hand of Sacrifice.
Also a fun note for anyone not aware: If you use the minor Glyph for this spell, you can use your Hearthstone 50% faster. This allows us once again to Bubblehearth.
Hand of Protection:
Places a Hand on a raid member that will protect them from physical damage for 10 seconds, but will not allow them to attack or use physical abilities. This spell will be useful in situations where dps gain aggro over a boss or add. It will keep them from being killed and give the tank a few seconds to regain aggro. It can also be used to help tanks drop "Physical" debuffs sometimes associated with tanking certain bosses.
Hand of Freedom:
Places a Hand on a raid member that will grant them immunity to movement impairing effects for 6 seconds. This will be very useful on fights with slows to help your raid members move out of dangerous situations. Some fights may not require it at all, but on others it may be mandatory for you to toss this on people.
Hand of Salvation:
Places a Hand on a raid member that reduces their aggro by 2% every second for 10 seconds. This spell will likely see a lot of use early in the expansion as tanks gets used to their new abilities and how to control their aggro. Keep it ready to toss on dps who pull aggro.
Crusader Strike:
An instant melee strike that provides 1 Holy Power. This spell is going to be extremely situational. The bonus to Holy Power generation is amazing, but at a cost of 15% of your Base Mana it is not worth using in most situations. It will be useful for situations where you need to get of a Light of Dawn or Word of Glory and only need one more Holy Power, but otherwise I would advise to stay away from it because of the steep mana cost.
Hammer of Justice:
Stuns the target for 6 seconds. This spell will be very useful in helping control adds and trash in the middle of combat. Certain fights have a large amount of adds, and learning to use this will help to control the damage that those adds susceptible to stuns can put out.
Reckoning:
Taunts the target to attack you. As a healer you will likely not use this very often. There may be the odd situation where you taunting will help your group get around certain mechanics though.
Rebuke:
Interrupts spell casting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 4 seconds. As a healer you may not have to use this often, but in certain situations you may be forced to. This can be very useful utility for fights that have a lot of interrupt-able damage and will save you a bit of mana if you manage to lock those abilities down.
General Healing "Rotation"
Our healing style has remained fairly similar to what it was at the start of the expansion. Holy Shock should be kept on cooldown at all times and the use of our cooldowns and talents is the most important part of our throughput. During downtime try to keep your Mastery shields up with Holy Radiance as much as your mana allows and continue using HS on cooldown. It seems that despite the mish mash of nerfs and buffs, EF is still the strongest level 45 talent. Continue to use it to spot heal, but during situations with burst raid damage LoD may serve you better. You should actively be making a choice between using your HoPo for EF or LoD with the changes, but throughout consistent damage spreading 3 HoPo EFs should be your go to.
When damage is strictly single target you want to keep your Beacon on the target you are focusing. Depending on the amount of damage they are taking, you should cast HS on them and spot heal the raid to heal them through Beacon. You should try not to cast Holy Light or EF on the Beacon target because transfers can be much more efficient to heal multiple targets. If the Beacon target requires more healing, you can use Divine Light or Flash of Light on them or another target to provide more healing to them. When you get enough Holy Power you should be casting EF or LoD on the raid, with a priority of placing an EF hot on yourself during periods where everyone is taking damage due to the HoT being stronger on you.
In an AoE situation we have access to Daybreak which allows for strong clumped AoE healing. In general AoE healing should follow a pattern of Holy Radiance - Holy Radiance - Holy Shock - Finisher (At 5 HP). If the situation is a burst damage situation, such as Megaera's Rampage in ToT, LoD will be the best finisher to deal with the immediate damage. EF can be useful in those situations if you manage to get a few HoTs rolling before the damage comes out, but once the damage has started it is best to use LoD to make sure people don't die. During prolonged damage it is best to spot heal with EF and raid heal with LoD. Remember that EF no longer places mastery shields while LoD does, so you can preshield with LoD now.
3. Talents
The talent system was once again redone with the Mists expansion. You now gain one talent point every 15 levels, with the ability to use one point per tier. I'm going to break down the talents tier by tier and give my opinion on the absolute best. Most talents are very situational now though, so if you are looking to get the best out of your talents you may end up changing your talents on a fight per fight basis.
Tier 1: Movement Speed Boost
Speed of Light| Long Arm of the Law| Pursuit of Justice
Speed of Light: This spell works just like a rogue's Sprint. You have access to a huge speed increase once every 45 seconds. I have found this to be very useful in emergency movement situations. Its short cooldown is also very good in making this spell available when its needed.
Long Arm of the Law: This talent is a much more available but slower sprint. I personally think that for an on demand sprint this is more available, but you also need to be able to judge something for it to work. If there are no enemies nearby it leaves you without a movement increasing ability to rely on. I also found that while playing Prot and Ret this ability lost a bit of it's usefulness because I was using Judgement in my rotation and at times had to wait for it to come off cooldown for my speed increase.
Pursuit of Justice: The static speed increase is super nice, and because of the maximum Holy Power cap being increased to 5 I usually found myself with at least 2 Holy Power. This made it so that in dungeons I usually had movement speed of at least 20%. The drawback to this talent is that you have to sit on some of your Holy Power to have your speed increase, but with a little bit of foresight you can have the maximum movement speed without gimping your healing.
Overall for this tier I think my favorite is Speed of Light. Since I am using the Pandaren Step enchant (8% movement), I have preferred to keep this talent over the passive running speed from Pursuit of Justice. PoJ is also good in situations where you need a more constant run speed and can pool your Holy Power, just remember that once you use up your HP you will not have increased movement speed. As for Long Arm of the Law: I have found use for this talent on Elegon due to constantly running in and out of his circular platform and having the boss to cast Judgement on. In any similar situation where you need speed more often (and have an enemy present), LAotL will be very useful as well.
Tier 2: Control
Fist of Justice| Repentance| Evil is a Point of View
Fist of Justice: Hammer of Justice with half the cooldown. Only useful when trying to control adds.
Repentance: Repentance still works the same way as the current Retribution version with the exception that the cooldown has been replaced with a 1.5 second cast time. It works very well to make large packs easier to pull.
Evil is a Point of View: Might be nice if there are some beasts in the new raid, but otherwise not of much use for healing.
There isn't much use for this tier in PvE content. Repentance will be a nice CC to have for simplifying trash pulls in, but a slow and a stun won't really see much use for a healer in raiding. This tier will be very situational at best and wont do any good on most fights, but on fights like Will of the Emperor it will do wonders to be able to stun or cc adds.
Tier 3: Healing
This tier saw massive changes with the patch. Basically every talent got changed up to some extent and its important to note the differences here.
Selfless Healer| Eternal Flame| Sacred Shield
Selfless Healer: This talent now allows Judgement to build HoPo as well as the mana and cast time reduction buff for Flash of Light, Divine Light, and Holy Radiance. Note that Judgement's mana cost was increased as a nerf to this talent, and it is currently thought to be lower than EF for sheer throughput. This talent will also scale well with Haste (due to Judgement's cd being lowered by Haste), but you will have to drop Spirit to be able to compete with the other talent's throughput.
Eternal Flame: Eternal Flame provides a HoT attached to your Word of Glory finisher, but this HoT no longer has the ability to proc our Mastery shields. To make up for this loss, the initial heal and HoT have gained a lot of strength since last patch. It is still a strong single target heal and seems to have kept the top spot as far as throughput is concerned. Should note that there are two Haste breakpoints now relevant with our current levels of gear: 25% (3106 Haste rating) and 35% (7170 rating). 25% is easily reached with raid buffs without dropping much Mastery, but 35% requires dropping a lot more Mastery. In general you should aim for at least 25% and I'll explain further in the stat section.
Sacred Shield: Sacred Shield grants you a 30 second shield that starts with three charges and can be cast on multiple people, but has a 10 second cooldown on its charges. It should be a strong talent for fights with high predictable damage on a few specific targets. May also be strong for fights where you are constantly stacked since EF performs much better for spread raid damage. Should note that there is a Haste breakpoint at 30% for this talent. It is easily reached in our current gear even while stacking Mastery.
Eternal Flame still seems to be the strongest talent of the tier, but the huge nerfs have made the other talents here competitive. You can likely play with whichever talent you prefer without seeing a huge drop, but if your focus is sheer throughput EF should still be the strongest. SS will likely be very competitive, if not stronger, for fights that require a lot of stacking due to letting you spam LoD while SS does its work. EF will definitely be stronger for fights with consistent damage on the whole raid though, especially if the raid is spread. SH is the weakest of the three, but may be competitive on stacked fights where faster HR will benefit you more.
Its important to note that each of these talents has inherent flaws as well though. SH is a lot of cd management, so if you're not good at that this talent's strength will suffer; EF is about constant healing to keep as many HoTs rolling as possible and plays like a race for HoPo which can be detrimental to longevity in a fight; and SS is all about shield maintenance and constantly making sure you use your charges. Try them all out and see which ones can work for you in certain types of fights.
Tier 4: Utility
Hand of Purity| Unbreakable Spirit| Clemency
Hand of Purity: This spell has a very strong DoT reducing damage component as well as a general damage reduction attached to it now.
Unbreakable Spirit: Now just simply reduces the cooldown on Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Lay on hands by 50%. Basically the same for Divine Shield and Lay on Hands in my opinion, but it should be stronger for Divine Protection now as you'll always get the full cooldown reduction.
Clemency: This spell is very powerful on fights where you need more access to any of your Hands, but it seems that the strongest use is going to have access to two Hand of Sacrifices in quick succession. It is also a very decent talent if you make sure to take advantage of the extra cooldowns.
Clemency I see as a spell with very specific situations where it will shine. There will be certain areas where taking it may be mandatory, such as having access to two Hand of Sacrifices/Protection in quick succession. Unbreakable Spirit is still a nice option for access to another Lay on Hands for longer fights and a small mana boost, and will likely be the best for fights with a need for more survival coodlwons. Hand of Purity is still extremely strong for any DoT mechanics you can encounter.
Tier 5: Throughput
Holy Avenger| Sanctified Wrath| Divine Purpose
This tier has the most interesting of our choices, so I'm going to break this down further than I have for other tiers.
Holy Avenger: This spell works the same way that the former Retribution ability Zealotry did. Any ability that generates Holy Power will generate a full 3 Holy Power. This is an amazing cooldown for burst throughput. In a tough healing situation, you can cast this to follow up every Holy Power ability with a LoD or WoG depending on the situation. It works extremely well in both single target situations and AoE healing situations. It has the bonus of being able to be paired with Avenging Wrath, Divine Favor, and Guardian for maximum amounts of throughput.
Sanctified Wrath: For 30 seconds Holy Shock, which is our best on the move heal and primary Holy Power generator, will have a reduced cooldown and an increased critical strike chance. The bonus healing that is a baseline part of Avenging Wrath combined with the lowered Holy Shock cooldown makes this talent very powerful for throughput and a possible conservation cooldown. This spell also works extremely well for healing while on the move while. The talent lets us heal much better while moving through higher Holy Shock use, and it also allows our Holy Power flow to continue as we move around. Once we have 4 Piece for Tier 14, this bonus will make our Holy Shock cooldown 2.5 seconds throughout the duration of the spell.
Divine Purpose: The bonus from this passive is very strong when it procs. The only thing that I don't like about this passive is that I don't control when the bonus procs, although I will say that it seems to proc quite a bit and has also procced off of itself for me. If you get a lucky streak this talents is especially useful.
I've found situations where both Holy Avenger and Sanctified Wrath are both extremely useful. As I said, the bonus from Sanctified Wrath has come in handy when I need to heal on the move. For all other situations I've taken Holy Avenger because I like the way it provides its throughput much better. It gives me a huge amount of control over when I use the throughput, and I can also stack it with my other throughput cooldowns. As for Divine Purpose, I'm not a big fan of chance to abilities. It seems to be very strong as far as conservation goes, and may be the go to if you're not great at managing cooldowns. It also seems that numerically HA and DP come out on top over SW, so I'd personally say just stick to HA.
Tier 6: Damage/Healing Spells
Holy Prism| Light's Hammer| Execution Sentence
Holy Prism: This spells combines healing and damage in an interesting manner. If you use the spell on a friendly target, it will provide a single target heal and spread AoE damage. If you use the spell on an enemy, it will deal single target damage and spread AoE heals. It gives us the ability to use the spell as an AoE heal or a single target heal while being on a rather short cooldown.
Light's Hammer: This spell works just like other classes's static AoE heals. You toss it down and it heals for 16 seconds in the given area. Added bonus of making you feel like Thor.
Execution Sentence: This spell places a 10 second HoT on a target that escalates in strength over the duration. It is a very nice, albeit short, HoT, but Paladin's already have strong single target healing and Beacon to allow us to have some heals going towards the tank while we heal the rest of the group. It serves the purpose of a extra healing on the tank while you heal other targets or during a damage heavy phase, but the final burst of healing also seems to go to over healing quite a bit.
Execution Sentence was by far my least favorite here. It is a straight single target heal that can easily become overheal or not be used when it's really needed because of how the heal works.
Light's Hammer is a general stationary AoE heal that will be extremely useful on any fights with a lot of stacking.
Holy Prism is a very interesting spell to play with in that to use it as an AoE heal you need to target an enemy. I also found it very surprising that this spell is actually really strong. I wasn't paying attention to the damage it was doing, but its AoE heal was stronger than a 3 Holy Power Light of Dawn and its single target heal was just about the same as Holy Shock. I think what finished making this spell amazing for me was the fact that I could choose whether to use it as an AoE or single target heal. The other two spells could only do one, but this spell had a powerful single and group heal.
I will definitely end up playing with either Light's Hammer or Holy Prism depending on whether large amounts of stacking are viable on the fight. Light's Hammer will likely also prove to be much stronger on 25 than it is on 10. Light's Hammer is also much stronger when there is heavy AoE damage for short bursts, but Holy Prism is a spell that has proven to be extremely strong for burst or prolonged AoE healing in situations where the raid isn't stacked.
Safe Choices
If you're not sure what to be using, a "safe" talent spec that you can use is Here. It includes the talents that will change your healing rotation the least, but I do advise you to play with the talents as some will be better suited to some situations than others.
4. Glyphs
A couple of new glyphs were added and changed with this patch. It seems that overall Major Glyphs for us are going to remain just about the same, but there are some notable changes.
Major Glyphs
Avenging Wrath:
While Avenging Wrath is active, you gain 1% of your health every 2 seconds. This glyph is a very nice passive bonus to have, and it has very good synergy with Sanctified Wrath.
Beacon of Light:
Removes the global cooldown of Beacon of Light. With the removal of the duration, this will likely see little use.
Blessed Life:
While Seal of Insight is active, you have a 50% to gain a charge of Holy Power when affected by a Stun, Fear, or Immobilizing effect. Can only occur once every 20 seconds. This Glyph will have very specific fights that it can work wonderfully for. For most fights it wont be used though.
Divine Plea:
Reduces the mana retrun and cooldown by 50%. I don't know if this mathematically makes any difference as long as you cast it every time you need it.
Divine Protection:
Reduces the Magic Damage Reduction of Divine Protection to 20%, but adds 20% Physical Damage Reduction to it. A very nice glyph for any fight with a lot of adds dealing physical damage.
Divinity:
Increases the cooldown of Lay on Hands by 2 minutes and causes it to restore 10% of your maximum mana. This is a very nice glyph that will likely see a lot more use early on as our mana is a lot rougher. It also plays very well with Unbreakable Spirit as on any fight over 6 minutes we can theoretically get off 2 LoH for 20% of our mana.
Flash of Light:
When Flash of Light is used on a target, your next heal on that target in the next 7 seconds will heal for 10% more. A decently strong glyph for some burst single target healing. It might not see much use due to how rarely we will be using such an expensive spell.
Illumination:
Reduces the mana returned by Holy Insight by 10% but allows your Holy Shock critical heals to return 1% mana.
Basically, it will be nice at lower Spirit levels but will become less worth it as we move into higher gear levels and eventually will be a regen loss. Also becomes stronger with Sanctified Wrath (Lower Holy Shock cooldown), Divine Favor (for Crit chance), and our four piece (Lowered Holy Shock cooldown). Because of how it works, I will definitely be using it as I gear up and I advise everyone else to as well.
Joe does a really good job of explaining our regen here, so if you really want to see how it will play out check out his post. He has a lot of good math and some graphs that can help you decide if you're over a threshold for the glyph.
Light of Dawn:
Light of Dawn heals two less targets, but heals each target for 25% more. This will likely continue to be very strong for 10 man content. It hasn't been worth it in 25 man content before, so I think that will stay the same as well.
Protector of the Innocent:
Using Word of Glory to heal another player will also heal you for 20% of the amount healed. If you use Word of Glory or Eternal Flame a lot, this glyph will do a lot of passive healing for you. On any fight where you cast more LoD it wont do much for you though.
Battle Healer:
Causes Seal of Insight to no longer heal you and instead heal nearby injured allies. Not worth it at all as you will likely never be in melee anymore.
Glyph of Divine Shield:
Removing harmful effects with Divine Shield heals the Paladin for each effect removed. This heal cannot exceed a percentage of the Paladin's maximum health.
Glyph of Hand of Sacrifice:
Hand of Sacrifice no longer transfers damage taken by the target to the Paladin.
My choices
As I'd said before, many of these glyphs are extremely situational.
Avenging Wrath's healing component seems to be very weak, but its an option if no other glyphs can help.
Blessed Life will be useful for any fight with a lot of immobilizing effects, but it wont see much use outside of those specific instances.
There is a lot of math behind Illumination, but basically as your gear gets better it's not worth it. Use it while you're gearing up, but once you get above about 7000 Spirit it isn't worth using at all.
Divine Protection, Protector of the Innocent, and Beacon of Light will have situational uses where they may all prove to be very nice.
I think that the best Glyphs that I will use most often will be Hand of Sacrifice, Divinity, Beacon of Light, and Flash of Light. Those are my personal favorites to just use in general, but if the need arises for other glyphs only Sac is useful in almost all situations.
Minor Glyphs
Falling Avenger:
Slows your falling speed while Avenging Wrath is active
Mounted King :
Casts Blessing of Kings on yourself when you mount your Paladin mounts.
Contemplation:
Allows you a moment of peace as you kneel in quiet contemplation of the Light
Winged Vengeance:
Your Avenging Wrath depicts 4 wings instead of 2
Seal of Blood:
Your Seal of Truth uses the Seal of Blood animation
Fire From the Heavens:
Your Judgement and Hammer of Wrath critical strikes call down fire from the sky
Luminous Charger:
Your Paladin class mounts glow with Holy light
Righteous Retreat:
Allows you to invoke your Hearthstone 50% faster while Divine Shield is active.
Bladed Judgment:
Your Judgement depicts a Sword or Axe instead of a Mace based on what your equipped weapon is
For minor glyphs, just pick whatever you think is coolest. As long as you include Righteous Retreat as your "I win" button, nothing else matter.
5. Stats
Each stat affects our heals in a different manner. Intellect is our primary stat and generally the strongest stat that we have. The secondary stats, Spirit, Mastery, Haste, and Critical Chance, all have different manner of affecting our heals and are valued different because of it. Spirit has become extremely more important since the MoP patch dropped. I advise gearing towards maximum possible Spirit.
I'm not good at the whole theorycrafting thing, so I'm going to say that you should all read up Bouchbagette's post on secondary stats for the new patch.
Basically he found that Haste is scaling much better than Mastery for EF and SS, but will be more taxing on your mana. Both of these talents also have some breakpoints of note with Haste: 25% and 35% for EF, and 30% for SS. Also of note here is that healing growth from Haste continues after those breakpoints, so you can go full Haste and not really focus on those breakpoints.
For SH it seems that both Mastery and Haste are just as strong, but you want to make sure you drop Spirit because otherwise you wont be competitive at all.
There are now two viable stat priorities to follow:
Int > Spirit > Haste > Mastery > Crit
With that keep in mind that Intellect is not twice as strong as secondary stats, so Intellect stacking your gem slots is not worth it. This stat priority will also be much harder on your mana, so if you are stacking Spirit and still can't sustain through a fight with Haste you can switch to Mastery for more efficiency.
Int > Spirit > Haste (to 3106 rating) > Mastery > Haste > Crit
This priority will be much more efficient on your mana with some loss in HPS. I'd recommend sticking to this through progression as it is more sustainable, but Haste is stronger as far as sheer HPS goes. Again, Int is not twice as strong as your secondary stats.
I will personally be aiming for to keep my Haste above 25% with raid buffs to make the 13th tick of EF and then stacking Mastery. If it becomes possible for me to hit the 35% breakpoint and not lose too much Mastery, I will likely try that out as well. I don't expect to go full Haste at any point during progression though, as I think longevity of mana is more important than sheer throughput.
6. Gearing
Gems
Meta Socket: Revitalizing Primal Diamond or Ember Primal Diamond
Red Gems: Brilliant Primordial Ruby
Orange Gems:Reckless Vermillion Onyx or Artful Vermillion Onyx
Yellow Gems: Fractured Sun's Radiance or Quick Sun's Radiance
Green gems: Zen Wild Jade or Energized Wild Jade
Blue Gems: Sparkling River's Heart
I think that how you gem will come down to how you feel about your mana pool in most situations. You should primarily be using Sparkling gems, but if you find that your mana feels fine you can start using Spirit/x gems to pick up throughput.
If you have absolutely no mana problems and don't feel it necessary to focus on Spirit, you can stack Yellow gems (Either Mastery or Haste) in your yellow and red sockets. You can then add in (Haste/Mastery)/X gems in Red and Blue sockets depending on issues with longevity as Intellect and Spirit are more sustainable stats than Haste. Note here that Mastery is much more sustainable than Haste as well, but less overall throughput.
Enchants
Shoulders: Greater Crane Wing Inscription
Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Superior Intellect
Chest: Enchant Chest - Glorious Stats
Wrists: Enchant Bracer - Super Intellect
Gloves: Enchant Gloves - Superior Mastery
Belt: Living Steel Belt Buckle
Pants: Greater Pearlescent Spellthread
Boots: Enchant Boots - Pandaren's Step
Main Hand: Enchant Weapon - Jade Spirit
Off Hand: Enchant Off-Hand - Major Intellect
Reforging
These is the general reforging strategy you should follow is to keep as much Spirit as possible while working to maximize your top secondary stat. For example, with a focus on Haste over mastery you need to keep the stat weights of Spirit> Haste > Mastery > Crit as follows:
If a piece has Spirit and Haste, don't reforge it.
If a piece has Spirit and Mastery, reforge the Mastery to Haste.
If a piece has Spirit and Crit, reforge the Crit to Haste.
If a piece has Mastery and Haste, reforge the Mastery to Spirit.
If a piece has Mastery and Crit, reforge the Crit to Spirit
If a piece has Haste and Crit, reforge the Crit to Spirit
If you are stacking Mastery, you'd simply prioritize Mastery in the same manner.
7 Consumables
Food
For food buff you have two choices. If you want to buff for Intellect, use Mogu Fish Stew. If you want to buff for Spirit, use Steamed Crab Surprise.
Potions and Flasks
For your flasks you also have two options based on whether you want Spirit or Intellect. Your Intellect option is the Flask of the Warm Sun, and your Spirit option is the Flask of Falling Leaves.
As far as potions go, you have three viable potions that you can use throughout a fight. The Master Mana Potion is a simple mana recovery potion while the Potion of Focus is the larger mana recovery potion with the accompanying ten seconds of not being able to cast. I personally like the Focus style potion much more, but if you can't find time to use it the Master Mana will still do you good.
Your last option for your potion is the Potion of the Jade Serpent. The Intellect buff it provides can be a very powerful throughput cooldown. If you are really trying to maximize your output and damage starts early in a fight, you can even pop one of these before the fight starts and still have the option to use another potion later in the fight.
8 Useful Links
Here are a few Holy Paladin bloggers who can be a lot of help if you take some time to read up on their thoughts:
Kurn's Corner
Healbot
Leveling Holy
Healing Spec
The Bossy Pally
Full Spectrum Holy Pally
This thread may also be of use if you have specific questions about how to fix your healing strategy.
9 Change Log
August 30th 2012: Initial posting
September 1st 2012: Updated with links through abilities section
September 18th 2012: Updated Stat weight section
September 22nd 2012: Updated all missing links, gemming strategy, glyph strategy, and added Useful Links section
March 24th 2013: Updated the few changes necessary for 5.2
June 1st 2013: Updated to 5.3
September 9th 2013: Updated to 5.4
September 13th 2013: Went through to update some small remaining changes, links, and cleaned up gems and stats section to attempt to be more clear