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
Guides from Other Classes
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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