My holy paladin guide *pre cata*

[zabimaru]

Introduction:
So, you're playing the holy paladin - probably the hardest type to play! You're enjoying the luxuries of the massive heals, and enormous mana pool large enough to sink a horse: but wait, there's a problem. Healing not quite up to scratch? Got that ere of uncertainty about how to play your holy paladin? Fear not! This guide will clear up those worries and horrible healing niggles!
Decisions, decisions!


Placing Talent Points:
Your talent points are hugely essential to playing your holy paladin, as it may make, or break your character's integrity. There are a few choices we can make to make our character feel special to us, and to make it seem even more special to the people watching your performance! The key abilities, and methods to apply them, will be explained later; this is a brief preview of some builds preferred by people – and remember! There are variations to these options, depending on preference!

What tree should I go down?
Big heals:
The 'big heals' option is just as it suggests, aiming for massively heals all the time! This is not a bad way to spend your talent points, especially earlier through your gear path when your holy light just isn't quite topping up the tank!
This is done by placing your talent points like this:
The World of Warcraft Armory
The increased critical chance will ensure your heals, are topping off that tank!

Raid mitigation:
This way of spending your talents primarily focuses on those much needed opportunities to mitigate massive damage! This is the way many people running heroic Ice Crown Citadel will spend their talent points, as the by the time you're running those harder aspects of raids, you should have the necessary gear to heal the tank without the extra critical chance!
This is done by placing your talent points like this:
The World of Warcraft Armory
The damage reduction is a great helping hand, especially in fights such as Lord Marrowgar and Festergut!

Glyphs:
Our glyphs are huge life savers; the holy paladins get some of the most potent glyphs in the game, if used correctly! The glyphs I prefer to use are:
-Glyph of Holy Light
-Glyph of Beacon of Light
-Glyph of Divinity
-Glyph of Blessing of Kings
-Glyph of Blessing of Might
-Glyph of Lay on Hands

Two of the minor glyphs used in this demonstration are not necessary, however, it's whole heartedly recommended you take those major glyphs, as well as the Glyph of Lay on Hands, as they can save you huge amounts of hassle.

The Holy Light Glyph may not seem to do much, but it can heal huge amounts on fights like Festergut, Marrowgar, or any other fight that involves people hugging up or being generally close. My holy light spell in Ice Crown Citadel generally does about 26,000 to 30,000 – that's a decent 2600-3000 healing per target! That's an incredibly bonus if it's hitting fifteen targets or so! This makes this particular glyph, worth more than the Flash of Light glyph!

The others are self explanatory, hopefully, as they are impressionable by their description, however, are still highly important for mana conservation among other things.

Gems and stats:
“Help! I go OOM more often than I should! Does that mean I should start stacking mp5? I mean! The tier items have it!” - No. Mp5 for paladins is like Christmas in Israel, it's wrong, it shouldn't happen. I will reveal later in this guide the providence of mana, conserving it, and how to potentially gain unlimited mana.

For the most part, you want to be aiming for Intellect, Critical Chance, and Haste: those three stats are our god factor as holy paladins. Despite common misconceptions regarding tier equipment, the only pieces worth getting are the helmet and shoulders – better equipment can be found for the other slots. Mana per 5 is simply wasted stat points, so even lower iLvl equipment can be better based on if it has Mp5, or haste on it. However, only intellect should be stacked with gems, as the other two stats can be gotten sufficiently from equipment and talents. The more mana, the better!
Here we see the Vault Boy disapproving of Mp5:

Librams:
A paladin's libram is his bible to healing, so it's important to have the right one! I believer that the iLvl 200 Libram (please inform me of the name) or the 245 Libram of Veracity (Emblems of Triumph) are the best. The one from emblems of frost is useless, don't waste your time with it – please.

Piecing things together!

Abilities, what to use and when:
Using your abilities at the right time, and to their maximum potential is the key to playing the holy paladin. We have a huge variety of abilities to use, so don't be shy, and certainly don't stick to two or three different spells!

Beacon of Light:
Our tank's god mode cheat – ensure the main tank always has this cast on him, even if it means refreshing it mid-fight, because, if you read the description, any heal you cast on anyone else, gets replicated on the beacon. This means I can spam heal two targets for 30,000 every 1.4 seconds – a huge asset!

Holy Light:
Our end-game baby, this beauty will heal for massive amounts, as well as the nice little bonus of it healing everyone nearby!

Flash of Light:
Our little heal, you'll gradually find the use for this dwindling away through the course of the game, making itself only useful through the holy shock bonus for a quick fire heal on someone desperately low on health.

Holy Shock:
Our panic button! It's cool down period makes it very circumstantial, but it's useful nonetheless! Especially as it gives us a free, instant flash of light if it crits! A useful toy for healing low raid members!

Divine Sacrifice:
Combine this with bubble to watch those heavy raid damage moments turn into a breath of fresh air as a huge chunk of the damage is redirected to you, and promptly absorbed by your bubble!

Divine Intervention:
Uh oh! We're wiping! Hit this on a healer and they won't take damage, or draw any aggression for 3 minutes while it's active – it removes them from combat, but renders them unable to act while it's activated. This will also kill the caster, but, without any durability loss! This is a handy raid saviour and money frugal ability! This ability requires a regent!

Hand of Sacrifice:
Another fun toy for if the tank is taking too much damage, for example, on Festergut's third inhale or Professor Putricide in phase three to absorb a chunk of that damage!

Hand of Salvation:
Best of macro'ing this to someone you know is going to draw too much threat! Instantly reduces the threat of the recipient, incredibly useful for those naughty warriors and warlocks!

Hand of Protection:
An “Uh oh! How did you draw aggro?!” move, allowing you to get the aggression off of that person and back onto the tank pronto without the risk of them dying!

Sacred Shield:
A surprisingly useful buff, actually. The effect it has is 0.75*Spellpower + 500 for the amount mitigated. Mine personally absorbs 3600 or so damage every 6 seconds! That's an astonishing 8600 per 15, half of what a priest can mitigate with their shield! Not to mention, you can also give the recipient a HOT with this – mine personally can do a good 1100 per tick. That means overall, with the heal over time kept up, in 15 seconds that can be an awesome 24000 damage either mitigated or healed with this spell alone!

Divine Illumination:
Reduces mana cost by 50%, a handy pick me up when mana is low, but more importantly is the buff gained from the tier 10 set when used in combination with the tactic given below.

Judgement of Light:
Our closest thing to raid healing, this spell will heal everyone tremendously, not to mention giving you a delicious haste buff!

Playing:
Why be a frugal with mana? There is a method to gain an amazing 7000+ mana per 5! You read it correctly, 7000 – without stacking any mp5! This is from my personal experience, and the math will also be shown.
./boring-math-stuff 40600 mana with 1.4 second hit rate = 0.04*406000 = 1624 per melee strike. 5/1.4 = 5800 mana per 5 seconds.
This is why haste is vital, and far more important than mana per 5 – the more haste and intellect, the more heals we can dish out!

That is actually more mana than I can use in 5 seconds. If you combine this with divine plea, while you rebuff sacred shield, beacon of light, judgement etc. while using instant heals, you can gain a phenomenal amount of mana per 5 seconds. This is why we don't stack anything but intellect, as this solely relies on having a high mana pool! This potentially allows you to spam holy light as much as you care to – this is also why I've put the second point in the judgement talent; to increase your hit rating. Follow the tactics, hug the bosses, and go wild!

It's the ultimate power!

Addons:
For holy paladins I highly recommend using HealBot. The key combinations (Ctrl, Shift etc.) with the mouse buttons make this an incredibly effect tool for paladin healing, making it fast and efficient! It also annuls the need for anything such as decursive.

PVP capabilities:
Using the “Seal of Justice”, beacon, and the spam potential with holy paladins, it's perfectly possible for them to PVP in their PVE equipment. They're able to dish out horrific stuns and immense heals under pressure, and can serve as a great asset in battlegrounds and arenas alike as your allies nuke down your foes while you have them pinned and stunned!

Conclusion:
And there you have it! Some of the most important secrets to playing the holy paladin – I hope this guide has aided you, and feel free to leave feedback regarding this guide either on the thread or via personal message. Contributions are of course welcome, and will be added with credits should I feel it necessary to the guide (I.e, I haven't mentioned hand of freedom as it's not an important part of PVE holy paladins). Thank you for reading this guide, and have fun playing as a fully fledged holy paladin!