- Author: lettara
- Date: November 7, 2022
- Updated: November 7, 2022
- Expansion: WotLK Classic
In Wrath of the Lich King Classic there are two primary spec outlines, with several variants for each. If your raid team has two Holy Paladins (which is standard), one of you should assume the ‘carry’ role, and the other should assume ‘support’. Since the talents Improved Blessing of Wisdom and Improved Devotion Aura do not stack, it is optimal for only one of you to run them, leaving the other to use powerful talents otherwise unavailable to them.
Carry Build Variants
Standard Carry
If you are blessed with the luxury of not having to run Improved Blessing of Wisdom and/or Improved Devotion Aura, you are able to max out both Improved Lay on Hands and Blessed Hands. You are also able to put 3 points into Benediction, for a small mana savings.
Carry Without Aura Mastery
Aura Mastery is a great defensive cooldown, particularly when you’re battling foes with high elemental damage (i.e. Saphiron, Sartherion). However, if you are fighting a boss in which physical damage is the greatest threat to your tanks, it is wise to drop Aura Mastery in favor of a third point in Benediction for a small mana savings.
Carry Without Righteous Fury
While Improved Righteous Fury is the best defensive talent available to us, using Righteous Fury can often be problematic. On add fights such as Gluth and Sartherion, RF will all but ensure that all stray mobs run straight to you. You can use this to your advantage by ensuring that all adds run to a single target, making it easier for your tank to grab them, but most of the time this proves to be more problematic for you than helpful to your tanks.
Support Build Variants
Standard Support
One Holy Paladin on your raid team must take the talents Improved Blessing of Wisdom and Improved Devotion Aura. Improved Blessing of Wisdom will boosts the Mp5 of every mana user in the raid, and Improved Devotion Aura will increase healing done from all sources by 6% as well as give additional armor. Unfortunately, the Paladin forced to take this spec will miss out on some nifty utility, output and mana talents.
Support Without Aura Mastery
Aura Mastery is a great defensive cooldown, particularly when you’re battling foes with high elemental damage (i.e. Saphiron, Sartherion). However, if you are fighting a boss in which physical damage is the greatest threat to your tanks, it is wise to drop Aura Mastery in favor of a second point in Improved Lay on Hands. Using Aura Mastery + Devotion Aura will provide around 1% physical mitigation to your raid for just 6 seconds, whereas a second point of Improved Lay on Hands will add an additional 10% physical mitigation to your tanks for 15 seconds.
Support Without Righteous Fury
While Improved Righteous Fury is the best defensive talent available to us, using Righteous Fury can often be problematic. On add fights such as Gluth and Sartherion, RF will all but ensure that all stray mobs run straight to you. You can use this to your advantage by ensuring that all adds run to a single target, making it easier for your tank to grab them, but most of the time this proves to be more problematic for you than helpful to your tanks.
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I feel Imp LoH is so situational. Almost always you should never have to rely on it and if you do it shouldn’t be more often then 15min. The 20% damage reduction is decent I admit, but I really feel you are much better investing these points into improved devotion. 6% additional raw healing and gives 50% more armor from devo, which probably mitigates more dmg overall throughout the course of a fight. Not only that but it frees your actual protection paladin to sink those points into something else like reckoning or guardian’s favor, which if your min/maxing dps taking every bit of threat is helpful. Just my 0.02¢
Hey and thank you for your comment!
Unfortunately Improved Devotion Aura’s 6% increased healing does not stack with a Resto Druid’s Tree of Life aura, as a different commenter mentions. As most raids will have a Resto Druid, and their aura has a 100 yard range vs our 40 yards, that part is unfortunately almost completely wasted.
The armor component also doesn’t stack with a Shaman’s Stoneskin Totem. Our version is slightly better when both are improved (1807 armor & 40 yards on Devotion vs 1380 armor & 30 yards on Stoneskin) but that difference is generally too small to really make this talent all that attractive.
It’s not at all necessary, and you’re right that in most raids you shouldn’t really need the reduced CD on Lay on Hands. However in the grand scheme of things, I’d say Improved LoH is probably slightly better than Improved Devo, even though both are perfectly viable talents. 🙂
Improved devo aura doesnt stack w tree of life, iirc. And tree has 100 yard range effect.
my tbc server died and they wouldn’t offer any free server transfers so i’m playing private woltk ty for ur list
Hey there cooki, glad you are enjoying the guide!
Thank for yor guide,
On the holy light spec talents
I traded Enlightenment for Improved Devotion Aura plz tell what do you think.
could i get talent guide for 3.3.5 but going through TBC? my wotlk private server just started TBC and i dont think i get any instant cast spells as holy
Why would you waste points in toughness? Improved Righteous Fury with the 6% damage reduction with raid wall (Divine Sacrifice) The threat you gen will not be enough to pull off of a tank, and it is by far more useful in every single situation. You are a bloody pally you have blessing of freedom if you ever need to move which is what Sindragosa? Never say a pally doing hard modes take toughness over IRF.
Righteos Fury is a tanking talent that generates alot of aggro.
As a healer you should never have righteos fury active.
Thats why you don´t spend the points in imp.r.f.
That’s simply not true. While this talent is geared towards a tank spec, it is true that you shouldn’t be anywhere close to pulling aggro during a raid, even with it up.
In general, yeah your tanks will be dealing far more threat than you will be while healing, even with Improved Righteous Fury on. However, there are some bosses where adds spawn, and tanks haven’t yet generated threat on them – so having Righteous Fury active there will make things harder for your tanks, and increase your chances of death.
Improved Righteous Fury isn’t completely useless, you can use it just fine on many boss fights, however it’s generally just safer to take Toughness instead, on your way to Divine Sacrifice.