Holy Paladining in Cata - A Beginner's Guide

A new expansion is here, and it's time to re-learn our class. Things are a little different than at 80, but overall, we're in a solid place right now. This guide will follow the same format as my previous guides, covering spec, gems, glyphs, and playstyle.

Last updated: Jan 27th, 2011

What to expect as a Holy Paladin

We are still primarily tank healers, but with our new AoE heals it's very possible for us to take on some raid healing duties as well. This makes dual healing in 10 mans much easier. It's also important to note that it's difficult for us to heal two tanks completely alone anymore due to beacon only transferring 50% of heals. Most likely, your role will be one tank and part of the raid. We also have much more mobility than in the past, allowing us to heal on the move. We are very well rounded and a great choice for someone who is newer to healing.

The Spec

It's not difficult to whip up a spec on your own, as it's fairly difficult to do it horribly wrong now that the trees only have 31 points. But there's some floater abilities that leave you some room for preference, so I want to cover the basic spec, and your options.

The Standard - This is the spec I'd recommend. It has everything you'd need in a well rounded build. You can very easily take one point out of Last Word and drop it into Improved Judgements in the Ret tree though.

My Spec - This is what I'm currently using. Only a couple points different atm, but this link will change as my spec does.

The Choices

There are some talents that are under debate and subject to preference. If it's listed here, consider it optional unless otherwise noted.

Last Word - I love this talent, but I've seen some other paladins skip it. My thoughts on the matter are that since tanks do not need to be topped off, you'll find them low enough for this to have use fairly often, and it can save a life. Alternatively, I often find myself using it to save a dps that stood in fire with my extra holy power. The counter argument is that generating the holy power you need will put the tank over 35% anyways, rendering this useless. I only use one point here, I stick the other in improved judgements. Both are good, but decide for yourself. One point here is necessary to move down the tree.


Enlightened Judgements - This is a great talent for a couple reasons. First, 10 more yards on Judgement. Second, your Judgement won't miss, meaning you'll get mana back every single time you use it. Third, it heals you. Between this and protector of the innocent you can almost completely ignore your own health.


Paragon of Virtue - This is the other talent I see a lot of paladins skipping, and while this is optional, I strongly encourage you to take it. It lowers the cd of 3 very powerful cooldowns. See the spell usage section for more information on individual uses.

Eternal Glory - Mandatory. Absolutely mandatory. The only reason I'm mentioning it is because I've seen it skipped. Especially now that Tower of Radiance doesn't affect Holy Light; Any holy power you can retain is mana saved, and that's a big deal.

Improved Judgement - More range to your Judgements. I stick one point in here that I take out of Last word. It's given me some more breathing room for range.

Blessed Life - A subject of some debate in the Holy Paladin community. I wrote a larger post about just this talent, but the short version is that it's ok, not amazing. It won't proc a ton but it's a small amount of free power if you want to give up judgement range.

Glyphs

With the way Glyphs have changed, we get some freedom to play around with them. This is awesome. It's much more fun to be able to swap a glyph in and out based on the fight, or choose based on playstyle rather than be stuck with certain ones and no flexibility. Let's take a look at our options.

Prime:

Holy Shock - A solid glyph. Recommended. It will proc more infusions, which is always good

Word of Glory -  An excellent glyph. Highly recommended.

Seal of Insight - Our best glyph. Use it.

Divine Favor - Not a bad choice if you find yourself needing more time with it, but for the most part gear should outweigh the value of this one. Look elsewhere first.


Major:
There's quite a bit of flexibility here, a lot of good glyphs and none that are flat required. Don't be afraid to swap these as you need them.

Beacon of Light - Now that beacon lasts 5 minutes, this glyph has been changed to make it cost no mana. With Tower of Radience encouraging us to move our beacon around, this isn't a bad glyph, but it's also not our best mana saver either, since beacon is not expensive.

Cleansing - Since you can "miss" with a cleanse now, this is nice for fights where you know you'll be cleansing a lot. (You can cleanse a target with nothing to cleanse, effectively just wasting mana) With cleanse being 2x as expensive as beacon, this is a better mana saver.


Divine Plea - 5% more mana back from your plea. A very solid glyph if you need it, but I'll get more into plea usage later under my spell usage section.

Divinity - Another great glyph if you're having mana problems. You should be using this, it's our best major.

Light of Dawn - This glyph now just makes Light of Dawn hit 1 more target. The value here depends on if you need the mana from the other glyph choices, and if you actually have that many targets to hit.I find Light of dawn fairly unwieldy as is, and I have a hard time even getting 5 targets with it, so I see this as a wasted glyph slot for my playstyle. Check your own LoD usage and judge this one for yourself. Not recommended for newer healers or 10 man healers. Strongly recommended for 25 man healers.

Lay on Hands - To judge the value of this glyph we have to look at a few things. The first is what are you doing? Are you doing a heroic where you might need the cd more often? Use it. Are you doing a raid where the fight won't last long enough to use it twice even with the lower cd? Don't. Is there enough trash between this boss and the next for the 10 minute cd to be up? Don't. It's situational. It's a good glyph and I wouldn't go into a heroic without it, but for raids I swap it out sometimes, depending on how much we're wiping.

Divine Protection - This has quickly become a favorite of mine while raiding. It's saved me more than once. With only a 40 second cd with our spec, it's really grown on me to help survive big boss abilities.

Minor:

All our minors are uninteresting. Insight, Kings, and Might are the only ones that affect us, and they each just lower the mana cost of their respective spells by 50%

Gear

So now that you have your spec created and your glyphs picked out, it's time to ask yourself what stats to
look for on gear. What makes something an upgrade?

Intellect - This stat is the holy paladin's drug of choice. It gives us spellpower, crit, and increases our mana pool. Also, a little known fact: the higher your intellect, the more regen you get from your spirit. So this is definitely priority #1.

Spirit - This is your big regen stat after Intellect. Don't overlook it, as we don't have a large amount of mana tools anymore. If a piece doesn't have spirit on it, chances are it's not an upgrade or you should at least reforge to it.

Haste - This stat is becoming fairly lackluster, while it is nice, it's no longer king like it used to be since it takes insane amounts to affect us at all. Take what you can get, but don't freak out if your casts are still long. This should balance out in later tiers. (The new gcd cap is 3489 haste, just to give you an idea. This is according to the compendium on EJ though...which is just full of terrible information right now so I don't know how accurate it is.)

Crit - Now that illumination is no longer a talent, crit is really just a chance for a bigger heal. It's not terrible, but it's not great either.We have a much smaller amount of crit than in the past, so don't overlook it like we did in ICC. Crit is solid, it will prov infusion, which is very much a good thing. Go for a balance between crit and haste.

Mastery - I want to explain our mastery a little. It's important to note that if the shield is not used, and you cast another spell, they do NOT combine. If the first shield was bigger than the new one, it will refresh. If it was smaller, it will override it. We use a lot of instant cast spells now, meaning we heal faster than boss abilities swing, usually. This diminishes the mastery for us quite a bit. It's a good mastery, but I wouldn't bother reforging for it or trying to stack it just yet. Mastery and crit take the same amount of rating to gain 1%. (Reforging 1% crit will give you 1 mastery, whereas it would take more than 1% haste to give you 1 mastery. Haste rating scales differently.) If a piece has mastery on it and no spirit, reforge the mastery to spirit.

Reforging

Everything you have should have a little spirit on it. if it doesn't, reforge mastery. If it does, check your haste and crit. Reforge haste if it will not lower your cast time (Use an addon like Quartz to check your cast times) and reforge crit if it will knock you down .1 second.

Gems

Gemming your Holy Paladin is painfully simple, as long as you remember a few things about gemming itself:


-You do NOT need to match colors. Any colored gem can go in any colored slot. The colors are ONLY for
the bonus. If you match the colors, you get the bonus. If you don't, the gems still work, but you just don't get
the bonus. All you need to worry about is meeting the color requirements for your meta gem. As a holy
paladin, socket bonuses are never worth it.

-Bonuses can be filled by multi colored gems. An orange gem can be placed into a red OR yellow slot and
still count towards the bonus. Additionally, an orange gem counts as both a red AND a yellow for filling your
meta requirements.

-A prismatic gem counts as ALL THREE colors. So, if your meta requires one of each color, one prismatic
can do the job.

Meta

You'll have to do some math to decide what's better here. You have two options, the Cataclysm meta, Ember Shadowspirit Diamond, or the Wrath gem, Ember Skyflare Diamond. What needs to be observed here is the requirements to activate them. The Cata one requires 2 yellows. The wrath requires 3 reds. There is a 33 intellect difference between the gems. One red gem gives 40 intellect. Using two oranges to fill your meta equals 40 int, vs the 80 from using two reds instead. So it's 7 intellect more to use the wrath meta and use red gems. The hitch, though, is that we have some good socket bonuses. Check out this Chestguard of Dancing Waves, for example. It's more int to gem for the bonus than to just put reds in. So, you have to do a little math here. Do you have enough good socket bonuses to justify using yellows to activate it? Otherwise, use the old meta. Or, if you're short on funds, the old one is a lot cheaper at the moment.


Gem Slots

You will primarily be using the Brilliant Inferno Ruby. However, we are getting some decent bonuses this time around, so gemming all Intellect is not king anymore.My rule of thumb is that if it takes only one gem to activate, and the bonus is 10 int or better, gem for the bonus. If it takes more than one gem, 20 int or better. This is not a set-in-stone rule, just a guideline. Here's some gems you can use to fill bonuses:

Blue - Purified Demonseye
Yellow - Potent Ember Topaz, Reckless Ember Topaz

Random Tips About Gear

-Wearing all plate does give a bonus now, a straight 5% more intellect if you are only wearing plate. Keep that in mind when looking at gear.

-Where trinkets are concerned, you are looking for intellect with a spirit on use or proc effect.

Playing your Holy Paladin
I want to go over each spells usual use, and then get into some tricks I've learned to help things along.

Spell Usage:

Holy Light - This is like the "auto attack" of heals now. Don't be afraid to use this. Damage comes in slow and steady, you have time. In decent gear, you'll gain mana faster than you lose it when using this.

Flash of Light - Our highest HPS comes from this now. It's your "oh no" heal. don't lean on this too heavily, it costs a ton of mana. Generates 1 Holy Power when used on your beacon target.

Divine Light - Powerful, slow, and expensive. Unless you have an infusion proc ready, don't use this. If infusion is procced and you need a big heal, this is your spell. Power Auras is great for monitoring infusion. Another good use for this, however, is when your guardian is out. Since it only copies 5 casts, making them big ones is good. That is, assuming it won't be overhealing. Grants 1 charge of Holy Power when cast directly onto your beacon target.

Holy Shock - Use this pretty much on cooldown. Cheap, moderately powerful, and generates holy power. An excellent spell. Daybreak procs will let you use this more, and the built in "power auras" will show you when this is procced.

Word of Glory - Use this at 3 Holy Power. It's free (in terms of mana) and it's powerful. Don't be afraid to use it with less Holy Power if you need to though, it scales pretty linearly.

Beacon of Light - This should always, always be up. Healing this target directly with Flash or Divine Light now will generate extra holy power. Be aware that beacon alone may no longer be enough to keep a tank up, so keep an eye on them.

Aura Mastery - The biggest use for this spell is not doubling devotion aura or making you immune to silences. The biggest use is doubling magic resistance auras to reduce damage. Dragon about to cast a flame breath? Throw on resistance aura and aura mastery it for a huge reduction. This is incredibly powerful, although learing when to use it takes some time.

Hand of Sacrifice - This is almost as powerful as Pain Suppression, but don't forget that it makes you take damage too! With our current health pools, you won't even need to bubble when you use it anymore. Protector of the innocent should keep you alive. If you're worried about it, use Divine Protection in conjunction with it.

Divine Protection - Don't forget you have this. it's pretty powerful, make sure it's keybound. It can save your life.

Hand of Salvation - If you are getting used to healing and have some time to watch your threat meters, help out a dps by using this on them. The best time is to wait until they're just barely under the tanks threat. Since it is a percentage drop, the more threat they have, the more they drop.

Hand of Freedom - This spell works on a lot more boss fights than it gets credit for. On Rotface, the kiting tank might be slowed by running through slime, freedom fixes it. On Sindragosa, her breath slows down tanks so it takes them longer to get to ice blocks. Freedom fixes that too. If it slows you, freedom probably helps. It also helps on some weird things too, such as Icehowl in ToC. When he turns around and breaths, hand of freedom will take you out of that little stun it causes. i don't have any good Cataclysm examples for this yet, but I'm sure it will work still, and it's seeing plenty of use in heroics.

Lay On Hands - This spell is not something most paladins will use efficiently. It takes alot of practice and experience to know just when to pop it, but it can mean the difference between a wipe and a kill if used properly. I can't really explain when the right time is, just try to use it and get used to it, and make sure it's keybound. Don't be afraid to use it though, it's a cooldown that's meant to be popped. Also, it should be noted that mastery DOES put a shield on your target after using LoH, and it's a pretty big shield.

Divine Plea - Avoid this during fights. It simply nerfs you too hard now. Use it during phase changes or periods of very, very low damage, but keep it bound to a cancelaura macro just in case. Healing with this up just costs more mana than you'll gain now. Macro:

#showtooltip Divine Plea
/cast Divine Plea
/cancelaura Divine plea

Press the button once, plea goes up. press it again and it will take it off you.


Seal of Insight - Although it's a small amount, this will return some mana from melee swinging the boss. Take advantage of it. But, it is very small, so if you need to be at range to aoe heal, do that instead.

Light of Dawn - Our AoE heal. Be aware that it heals people you are facing, so pay attention to your positioning. It also uses holy power. The more you have, the better it is. It's pretty worthless with only one Holy Power, and 2 is not optimal either, but will work in an emergency. Using this on 3 holy power when you actually need the healing will be your best use.

Holy Radiance - A powerful aoe, but it is very expensive. Before you use it, ask yourself if you have enough time to single target your group up. This can oom you quickly.

Judgement - Use this on cooldown. Returns mana. Counts as physical damage and uses the melee hit cap to determine misses.

Guardian of Ancient Kings - A powerful cd. I use it in basically the same types of situations as I would use Lay on Hands. It does not copy AoE heals.


Avenging Wrath/Divine Favor - Mentioning these together since I usually use them together. They are both off the global cooldown so they can be macroed together if you so choose. These are great little cooldowns that are often overlooked.

Crusader Strike -  If you're meleeing anyways, you can hit this for some extra holy power, but I wouldn't try to focus on it, since the damage is too low to matter and it does have a mana cost.  It is a good way to get that extra holy power needed for Light of Dawn right before a big aoe though.

Misc Information
Addons
The default ui is actually useable now, but still isn't perfect for healing. However, if you must, check out my guide to healing with the default ui. It's a little outdated, since the new raid frames are out, but much of it still applies.

As far as healing addons go, I highly recommend Vuhdo, it simply is the best. I even have a guide on setting it up!

Really any raid frames will work, just make sure you're using some sort of mouseovers or click bindings so you don't have to target your heal target. My guide to the default ui will explain mouseovers better.


~~~

As usual, if you have any questions or are just having trouble, comment or contact me and I'll help you out as best as I can. Also, if you're a numbers person and want more information on the math behind our spells, here's a link to the compendium on Elitist Jerks.

/bubblehearth