Holy Paladin Healing Easy Mode — The War Within (11.0.5)
On this page, we explain how to easily play Holy Paladin in World of Warcraft — The War Within (11.0.5), using the simplest rotation, talent tree, stat priority, gear setup, etc., without sacrificing performance.
Foreword
This section is intended for players who are new to the game or class, have no intentions of raiding Mythic difficulty or simply want a more straightforward way to play their specialization without being overwhelmed by the numerous priorities and active abilities that need to be taken into consideration for optimal play.
The Basics of Holy Paladin in The War Within
Holy Paladins do best at passively supporting tanks with their beacons and single-target healing in general. In addition to this, Holy Paladins are peculiar because they have many tools at their disposal that allow them to handle various encounter mechanics in ways that other healers cannot.
If you are completely new to Holy Paladin and need more information on the abilities available to you, you can check out our Spell Summary page.
Beginner's Guide to Holy Paladin in The War Within
Beginner
Herald of the Sun Melee Build for Holy Paladin
Despite being labeled as the "melee" build, every build functions primarily in melee.
The difference in this build is that you will be primarily using Crusader Strike
and
Judgment instead of
Holy Light or
Flash of Light as
a filler global.
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Beginner
Lightsmith Avenging Crusader Build for Holy Paladin
The difference in this build is that you will be focused on Judgment and casting
this ability as frequently as possible during
Avenging Crusader and to proc
Hammer and Anvil.
When this ability is on CD, you will follow the standard rotational priority.
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Beginner
Herald of the Sun Casting Raid Build for Holy Paladin
This build is designed for those who want to cast Holy Light or
Flash of Light
as a filler global, rather than pressing
Crusader Strike. Please note that despite
the heavy amount of casting you may be doing, you will still want to primarily be in melee.
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Beginner Mythic+ Build for Holy Paladin
This build is designed for those who want to play a fairly simple Mythic+-focused build.
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Basic Playstyle for Holy Paladins
Below, we will break down your overall priorities depending on the form of content you find yourself doing.
Standard Casting Rotation
The standard casting rotation focuses on casting Holy Shock as much
as possible and generating as much Holy Power as possible for
Light of Dawn and
Word of Glory.
Our goal is to cast these two abilities as much as possible. We will also be making use of
Infusion of Light
as much as possible in order to reduce the cooldown of Holy Shock through the
Imbued Infusions talent.
- Keep
Holy Prism on cooldown as much as possible.
- Spend Holy Power.
- Use
Holy Shock whenever possible.
- Consume
Infusion of Light when you cannot
Holy Shock and do not have enough Holy Power to use
Light of Dawn or
Word of Glory.
- Cast remaining
Holy Shock charge.
- Cast
Judgment.
- Cast
Hammer of Wrath.
- Cast
Consecration if you have nothing else to do.
- Cast
Crusader Strike as your lowest priority.
Standard Melee Rotation
The standard melee rotation focuses on casting Holy Shock as much
as possible and generating as much Holy Power as possible for
Light of Dawn and
Word of Glory.
Our goal is to cast these two abilities as much as possible. Our filler global will be
Crusader Strike
in order to generate Holy Power and trigger the
Crusader's Might passive.
- Keep
Holy Prism on cooldown as much as possible.
- Spend Holy Power.
- Use
Holy Shock whenever possible.
- Cast
Crusader Strike to generate Holy Power.
- Cast
Judgment to consume
Infusion of Light.
- Cast
Hammer of Wrath.
- Cast
Consecration if you have nothing else to do.
5-Man Healing
5-man healing is very similar to raiding rotations, with the exception
that you will be casting Word of Glory much more frequently.
- Cast
Beacon of Virtue whenever your group is in need of healing if you have it talented.
- When you have 5 Holy Power, cast
Word of Glory for single-target healing and when your group members aren't stacked and during
Beacon of Virtue.
Light of Dawn should be used rarely, only when it will hit enough targets and no one is in need of single-target healing.
- Cast
Holy Shock on cooldown.
- Spend Holy Power if possible.
- Cast
Crusader Strike to generate Holy Power.
- Consume
Infusion of Light with
Flash of Light or
Judgment.
- Cast
Consecration if it is not already active.
While every Infusion of Light proc will have some use,
Flash of Light
has very strong synergy with
Divine Revelations,
Tower of Radiance
and
Beacon of Virtue. One of the strongest heals you can output in small
group content comes from using Beacon of Virtue, followed by a Flash of Light
on one of the beacon targets.
If you need more information about how Holy Paladin plays in 5-man content please refer to our dedicated Mythic+ page which you can find below:
DPS Rotation
Dealing damage as a Holy Paladin is fairly simple, and most of it will come when you are doing healing anyway. If you find yourself trying to maximize your overall damage output with no regard for your healing, you can follow this rotation:
- Keep
Consecration on the ground. This is especially important in AoE situations.
- Cast
Shield of the Righteous if you have the Holy Power available to do so.
- Cast
Judgment off cooldown if using the
Righteous Judgment talent.
- Cast
Hammer of Wrath off cooldown.
- Cast
Holy Shock off cooldown.
- Use
Crusader Strike if everything else is on cooldown.
Holy Power
With many different ways to generate Holy Power, you will often have to decide whether to cast Light of Dawn or
Word of Glory.
In raid settings, these two abilities do comparable healing, but
Word of Glory
is largely superior due to the impact of it being entirely controllable single-target
healing. That being said, if the Word of Glory is likely to overheal, then you
should instead aim to use
Light of Dawn. In small group content and Mythic+,
it is harder to get full value from Light of Dawn, making
Word of Glory a more
desirable cast. That being said, if you do find your group members stacked
up and not in need of a strong single-target heal, then
Light of Dawn
can still be extremely effective.
Using Infusions
There are multiple different ways that you can spend an Infusion of Light:
Holy Light healing increased by 100%.
Flash of Light reduces the mana cost by 70%.
Judgment prevents an additional 100% damage dealt by the target.
In general, consuming an Infusion of Light proc on any of these three abilities
will give you close results. The actual best choice is highly situational. In most
cases, you will want to use
Flash of Light as your default cast due to
Divine Revelations and the opportunity to gain a quick Holy Power through
Tower of Radiance. When your group is not taking heavy damage, then you should
instead be consuming infusion with
Judgment.
Holy Light is very strong
if you will have time to finish the full cast before damage is healed and your
group is well stacked to make use of
Resplendent Light. In general,
you will be using
Flash of Light the majority of the time, with a few
Judgment
casts when no healing is necessary. Keep in mind that you do not need to consume every
Infusion of Light proc. With
Inflorescence of the Sunwell talented, you will
often have more procs than you can use, the focus is always on casting
Holy Shock
as much as possible, you simply consume Infusion procs when Holy Shock is on cooldown.
Beacon Target Selection
With the reintroduction of Beacon of the Lightbringer, choosing the best
beacon targets is a bit more complicated due to
Beacon of Faith. In Mythic+,
you will generally use it on your two squishiest DPS players unless your tank is
taking very heavy damage. In raid, you will use both beacons on Ranged DPS.
By standing in melee and having a beacon on a ranged target, you will have full
mastery effectiveness at all times, resulting in a massive healing increase. If you
are facing an encounter where the raid is stacked, or both tanks are taking heavy
damage, you can instead place the beacons on both tanks or on players who are most
in danger. You should not aim to be swapping it mid-combat, though, unless a player with it dies.
Cooldown Usage for Holy Paladin
As a Holy Paladin, you have several healing cooldowns. You should use them as we explain below:
Avenging Wrath increases your healing done and damage done by 20% for 20 seconds. It is very useful during periods of high sustained damage.
Divine Toll is a strong burst heal that can be used to cast many
Holy Shocks and generate Holy Power quickly.
Tyr's Deliverance will buff your allies, increasing the healing you can do to them with
Flash of Light,
Holy Light, and
Holy Shock. When using this ability, you will want to make sure you are casting these spells on buffed allies, as well as extending the duration as long as possible with the
Boundless Salvation.
Lay on Hands should be used to save dying raid members, especially tanks.
Blessing of Sacrifice lasts 12 seconds, transferring 30% of the damage taken by your target to you. The effect is automatically canceled if the transferred damage would cause you to fall below 20% health. This cooldown is excellent for reducing the damage taken by the tank or other raid members. Be cautious, however, because Blessing of Sacrifice can be dangerous to your own life if used without a damage reduction cooldown, such as
Divine Protection or
Divine Shield, or when simultaneous raid damage independently threatens your life such that the additional damage taken from Blessing of Sacrifice can lead to your death.
Aura Mastery empowers your chosen aura, increasing its range to 40 yards and also improving its efficiency. It is a raid cooldown, and it should be used at a time designated by your healing officer or raid leader.
Blessing of Protection can be used to clear harmful physical damage debuffs and bleeds from the target. Be mindful of the fact that bosses will not attack targets affected by Blessing of Protection, though, so only cast it on the current tank if the off-tank is prepared to take over.
Blessing of Freedom removes movement-impairing effects from the targeted raid member, which can be very useful in certain situations.
Best Talents for Holy Paladin in The War Within
This is the Easy Mode page, which presents things in a simplified manner with simplified builds. For our detailed, fully-fledged Talent and Rotation guides, click below!
Stat Priority for Holy Paladin in The War Within
The general stat priority for a Holy Paladin is seen below. This is very much a rough guideline and is designed for players who do not wish to sim their character through QuestionablyEpic.
- Haste
- Mastery
- Critical Strike
- Versatility
While the stat priority for classes is normally the same for both the Easy Mode page and our full guide, subtle differences can still occur. If you want to see the full explanation of the stat priority, as well as the absolute top choices for the priority, head to our full stats page below.
Changelog
- 21 Oct. 2024: Page updated for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Reviewd and Updated for The War Within.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Page Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Season 4.
- 18 Apr. 2024: Reviewd for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Stat priority updated.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.2
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 07 Aug. 2023: Updated talent recommendations.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Talent recommendation updated for Patch 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 24 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Paladin Guides
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This guide has been written by Mytholxgy, who plays healer in Liquid. He is a Templar in the Paladin class discord. You can reach him on Twitter and watch him stream on Twitch.
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