PvE Holy Paladin Rotations & Cooldowns

As a healer, the Holy Paladin has less of a set rotation and more of a priority system. You’ll be performing triage with your healing abilities while using your cooldowns to maximize your output and minimize your mana usage, and perhaps even weaving in a little damage where you can.

PvE Holy Paladin

Gems, Enchants & Consumables

Stat Priority & Reforging

Best Professions

Pre-Raid Gear

Rotation & Cooldowns

Talents, Builds & Glyphs

Best in Slot (BiS)

Addons & Macros

Important Mechanics

Before we get into your spell priority, there are a couple of key features of Holy Paladins that should be understood for optimizing your spell choices.

Holy Power

The core mechanic for Paladins is Holy Power, a special resource that you will be managing in addition to your mana pool. As a Holy Paladin, you have the passive ability Boundless Conviction, which allows you to store up to 5 Holy Power at a time. Some of your abilities will generate Holy Power, and some will spend it. You can generate Holy Power through several of your heals and some of your damage-dealing abilities. You can spend it on either a single-target heal or an AoE heal. Abilities that spend Holy Power do not cost any mana, although you will need to spend mana on generators in order to access them.

The Holy Avenger and Divine Purpose talents both also affect your Holy Power budget, the former by boosting the Holy Power you gain from generators and the latter by reducing the amount you need to spend on spenders.

Beacon of Light

There are a few things to note about how Beacon of Light works. This is a powerful spell that will allow you to keep a steady stream of healing on its target while you heal others. However, it doesn’t mean you can ignore its target entirely and count on them to be healed exclusively through the Beacon. Sometimes you will still need to heal them directly.

• Holy Light transfers 100% of its healing through Beacon of Light.
• Your four big AoE heals transfer 15% of their total output: Holy Radiance, Light of Dawn, Light’s Hammer (talent), and Holy Prism (talent).
• Everything else transfers 50% of its healing output.
• Healing your Beacon of Light target directly with Flash of Light or Divine Light will grant you Holy Power. This is often better in the long run for your mana supply and throughput, even though it means healing 1 fewer targets with the spell.

Mastery: Illuminated Healing

Your Illuminated Healing passive ability causes each of your heals to leave an absorption effect on their targets. This effect stacks, so you can keep healing someone and stacking absorbs on them. Bigger heals will leave bigger absorbs. You can stack absorbs on targets ahead of big damage spikes. This will not be very mana-efficient if it involves a lot of overhealing, but it can allow your targets to survive big hits where they otherwise might not.

Spell Priority

Remember to maintain Seal of Insight at all times. Note that this is a toggle similar to the old auras, and not a buff that has a duration, so it should stay active even if you die – but it’s still good to notice if it’s missing.

Before the pull, you should apply Beacon of Light to your priority target (usually a tank) and cast some heals on them to build up 5 Holy Power and some Mastery shields. Be sure to drink as well to get your mana back.

1. Cast Beacon of Light before the pull, and again when you need to move it to a new target.
2. Cast Light of Dawn if you have at least 3 charges of Holy Power and there are multiple targets who need immediate healing.
   • Note that this spell no longer has a positioning requirement, just a 30-yard radius.
3. Cast Flash of Light on a target who needs immediate healing if you have the Selfless Healer talent and 3 stacks of the buff.
4. Cast Eternal Flame or Word of Glory on a target who needs immediate healing, ideally with at least 3 Holy Power.
5. Cast Eternal Flame to apply/maintain the HoT on priority targets if you have the talent and at least 3 Holy Power.
   • Prioritize tanks and other targets who are taking steady damage. You can also try to blanket as many targets as possible for AoE damage.
6. Cast Holy Shock on cooldown on a target who needs healing and/or to generate Holy Power.
   • If you have at least 1 stack of Daybreak, this will also do some AoE healing.
7. Cast Sacred Shield to apply/maintain the shield on the tank(s) or other priority targets if you have the talent. 3 targets is ideal.
8. Cast Flash of Light on a target who needs immediate healing if your instants are on cooldown.
9. Cast Holy Radiance if 3 or more targets need healing and you don’t have at least 3 Holy Power.
10. Cast Divine Light on any target who is missing a lot of health.
    • Casting this on your Beacon of Light target will also grant Holy Power if you need it.
11. Cast Holy Light to top off a target if there isn’t more urgent healing to be done.

Damaging Rotation

You can add the following at the bottom of the list for when you’re able to contribute some damage. These abilities should only be used if you have the mana and time to spare. Your main job is to keep other players alive who can do a lot more damage than you, but sometimes every little bit helps. Judgment and Crusader Strike should only be used if you are trying to generate Holy Power for healing, as their damage and mana efficiency are worse than the other abilities. Holy Shock on the other hand is worth using regardless. Hammer of Wrath and Denounce do not generate Holy Power, but both do good damage.

12. Cast Holy Shock on cooldown on an enemy.
13. Cast Judgment on cooldown if you have the Selfless Healer talent and don’t have 5 Holy Power.
14. Cast Crusader Strike on cooldown if you’re in melee range and don’t have 5 Holy Power.
15. Cast Hammer of Wrath on cooldown when an enemy is below 20% health.
16. Cast Denounce.

Important Cooldowns

In addition to your core healing spells, you have a number of abilities with longer cooldowns that you’ll want to utilize in opportune moments.

Healing & Defensive Cooldowns

• Avenging Wrath
  Using this cooldown is often referred to as “popping wings,” and those wings give you 20% increased damage and healing for 20 seconds, or 30 seconds with the Sanctified Wrath talent. It’s a pretty straightforward buff on a 3-minute cooldown.
• Denounce
  You won’t get much use out of the debuff from this in PvE content, since tanks are un-crittable anyway and they should be the ones taking all of the hits. Still, it’s good to remember you have it in case you might be able to help out a non-tank who is taking hits. Mainly you will use this to deal some extra damage if you can spare the mana and the cast.
• Devotion Aura
  The old versions of auras are gone, and this is now a cooldown instead of a persistent buff. It offers the silence and interrupt immunity from the old Concentration Aura along with 20% magic damage reduction for 6 seconds, on a 3-minute cooldown.
• Divine Favor
  Where Avenging Wrath directly increases the power of your damage and healing, this buff increases your casting speed and spell critical chance by 20% for 20 seconds, on the same 3-minute cooldown. You can use the two together as a mega buff combo or separately to space them out for heavy damage phases.
• Divine Protection
  This is a personal defensive on a short-ish 1-minute cooldown that reduces magic damage you take by 40% for 10 seconds. Great to use with Hand of Sacrifice if you don’t have Glyph of Hand of Sacrifice. Also great for any other situation where lots of magic damage is going out.
• Divine Shield
  The iconic pally bubble makes you immune to all damage and effects for 8 seconds on a 5-minute cooldown. This is an unparalleled personal defensive that can allow you to survive just about anything. You do need to be mindful of Forbearance, which can also be applied by Hand of Protection or Lay on Hands and prevents any of the three abilities from being used for 1 minute. Your damage is reduced while this is active, but that’s not a big deal for you as a healer. Sometimes the best use of this ability is to allow you to ignore mechanics for 8 seconds of uninterrupted healing.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings
  You can summon this guy to help you heal for 15 seconds on a 3-minute cooldown. He’s a copycat, mimicking all of your heals and doubling their effects. As a bonus he also gives you 10% Haste. You can use this with your other big healing cooldowns or as part of a rotation to cover periods of heavy damage.
• Hand of Protection
  Similar to your Divine Shield, but external, and only protects from physical attacks and not magic damage. It can also be used to remove bleeds and physical debuffs from the target. Note that this will prevent the target from attacking while it’s active. You’ll also need to remember that it applies Forbearance and can’t be used on a target who already has it. It also can’t be used on a target who already has another one of your Hand buffs on them.
• Hand of Purity (Talent)
  You most likely won’t use this talent much in PvE content, but if you do, this buff has a very short 6-second cooldown, so you can chain it. It protects the target from 80% of DoT damage and reduces their overall damage taken by 10% for its 6-second duration.
• Hand of Sacrifice
  Reduces 30% of damage taken by the target over 12 seconds, up to a total of 100% of your maximum health. Best used with Glyph of Hand of Sacrifice, as otherwise it will transfer that damage to you, and you will need to use a personal defensive to keep your own health up. This is a very powerful external cooldown that is usually used on the tank, often as part of a cooldown rotation.
• Hand of Salvation
  Removes all of a target’s threat for 10 seconds, on a 2-minute cooldown. Useful for helping tanks swap or for saving people from adds.
• Holy Avenger (Talent)
  Using this will cause your Holy Power generators to do 30% more healing and damage and generate 3 Holy Power with each use for 18 seconds, on a 2-minute cooldown. While this is up, you can alternate Holy Power generators and spenders for huge burst.
• Lay on Hands
  This ability has the longest cooldown of any in your arsenal at 10 minutes, or 12 minutes with the glyph. It lets you dump healing equal to your own maximum health pool onto a target instantly. With Glyph of Divinity, you also get 10% of your maximum mana when you use it. This is another spell that causes Forbearance, so you won’t be able to use it on a target within 1 minute of Divine Shield or Hand of Protection (yours or another Paladin’s).
• Holy Prism (Talent)
  This is best cast on an enemy target that is near a lot of players since you will get more total healing from the splash than by using it directly. It’s fairly efficient so you can use it on cooldown if there are enough injured players within range. You’ll also contribute a bit of damage.
• Light’s Hammer (Talent)
  If you’re talented into this ability, you can place it on the ground to put out some healing, damage, and a slow effect within a 10-yard radius for 14 seconds, every 1 minute. A great cooldown for stacked raid healing, and costing zero mana and no Holy Power.
• Execution Sentence (Talent)
  With this talent taken, you’ll be able to apply Stay of Execution to a friendly target, healing them for an escalating amount over 10 seconds on a 1-minute cooldown. You can also dispel the player to release all of the remaining healing at once.

Mana Cooldowns

• Divine Plea
  This is your only real mana cooldown as a Holy Paladin. It regenerates mana based on your Spirit in 3-second intervals over 9 seconds, and you will always regenerate at least 12% of your maximum mana. At one time this ability also came with a 50% reduction to your healing while it was active. But in the patch that we should be getting for MoP Classic, there is no such downside to using this spell.

Utility Spells

Holy Paladins have a variety of useful utility spells that also bear mentioning.

Crowd Control

• Blinding Light
• Fist of Justice (Talent)
• Light’s Hammer (Talent)
• Rebuke
• Reckoning
• Repentance (Talent)
• Turn Evil

Movement

• Speed of Light (Talent)

Buffs

• Blessing of Kings
  • Note that this doesn’t stack with Mark of the Wild, Embrace of the Shale Spider, or Legacy of the Emperor
• Blessing of Might
  • Note that this doesn’t stack with Roar of Courage, Spirit Beast Blessing, or Grace of Air
• Hand of Freedom
• Righteous Fury
• Seal of Light
• Seal of Righteousness
• Seal of Truth

Dispels

• Cleanse

Revive

• Redemption