World of Warcraft The Complete Guide to Paladins: Part 4

Name	The Complete Guide to Paladins: Part 4
Category	Class

Hyacintha here, and again, we have Sevirus to help us learn all about the Paladin class. Today’s topic is the Holy Paladin! While always a good choice for a healing class, since Burning Crusade, the Holy Paladin has become almost preferred to others due to their wide range of useful buffs, their ability to focus and concentrate on healing, and the simplicity of their healing spells. Today we will discuss these things in detail.



Hyacintha: Hey Sevirus. I am very glad to have you back again. So, today we are going to be talking about the Holy Paladin I am to assume, as we have covered all of the others?



Sevirus: Thas’ quite right lassie. The Holy Paladin in the specialization I am currently studying under and it is a very entertaining one at that as many parties hinge on your ability to perform. A well played Paladin is a great addition to any raiding guild or small group, PVP-wise too. This conversation is meant primarily for Paladins that raid. I will go into details about how to react in certain situations Player versus Environment wise. Talent-specs and information regarding most spells that a paladin has will be covered as well. Important to understand is that this guide covers how I play a Paladin and it is a strictly PvE spec. My idea here is to help you in raid situations for the most part to be the best Paladin you can be so raid leaders will keep asking you to come back.



Hyacintha: Well, I think it is best to let you guide me through this one, Sev. I guess everything here really is going to have to do with the spec itself, so can you outline that for us?



Sevirus: You are quite correct in thinkin’ that, missy. My spec is very specific and I would be glad te’ go over it first.



Here is the break down.



Holy Talents - 50 point(s)

Divine Intellect - rank 5/5
Spiritual Focus - rank 5/5
Healing Light - rank 3/3
Aura Mastery - rank 1/1
Improved Lay on Hands - rank 2/2
Unyielding Faith - rank 2/2
Illumination - rank 5/5

Improved Blessing of Wisdom - rank 2/2
Pure of Heart - rank 3/3
Divine Favor - rank 1/1
Sanctified Light - rank 3/3
Holy Power - rank 5/5
Light's Grace - rank 3/3
Holy Shock - rank 1/1
Blessed Life - rank 3/3
Holy Guidance - rank 5/5
Divine Illumination - rank 1/1

Protection Talents - 11 point(s)

Improved Devotion Aura - rank 5/5
Guardian's Favor - rank 2/2
Toughness - rank 3/5
Blessing of Kings - rank 1/1



Now te’ tell you a little about each of them. The Holy tree contains talents focused on healing and caster-related buffs. Common Holy builds will invest at least 20 points into the tree. A typical 20 talent point investment should include Divine Intellect (5/5), Spiritual Focus (5/5), Healing Light (3/3), Improved Lay on Hands (2/2) and Illumination (5/5)



Now, dedicated raiding paladin healers will want to invest 41 points or more into the holy tree. In my build, I invest 60. Most will pick up Divine Favor along with Sanctified Light and Holy Power as synergy talents that will benefit Illumination to a much greater extent. Other useful talents as a healer include Light's Grace, Holy Guidance and Divine Illumination and Improved Blessing of Wisdom. At this point, the investment of 1 talent point in Holy Shock is simply a luxury or an item of fun and not really needed for a quality Holy talent build. However, we will go over the break down here.



Divine Intellect (Ranks 5/5) — This talent increases your total intellect by 2%-10%.This really is an no brainer talent. It is a must. Obviously you do not want more strength over intellect while healing.
Spiritual Focus (Ranks 5/5) — Here is another no brainer and a great talent. It gives your Holy Light and Flash of Light spells a 14%-70% chance not to lose casting time when you take damage.
Healing Light (Ranks 3/3) — This increases the amount healed by your Holy Light and Flash of Light by 4%-12%. Now, stop to think - 12% more healed by your healing spells? This is a must have, obviously.
Aura Mastery (Ranks 1/1) — Aura Mastery increases the radius of your Auras to 40 yds. You will want your aura at times to reach as far as possible. For a good example, this talent is great during Illidan Phase 2 or other fights where many of your team members may be far away.
Improved Lay on Hands (Ranks 2/2) — Improved Lay on Hands gives the target of the Lay on Hands spell a 15%-30% bonus to their armor for 2 minutes, and in addition, the cooldown of your Lay on Hands spell is reduced by 10 to 20 minutes. Some will instantly come to debate this one when they see it and immediately argue to say that it is not that great due to the extensive cool down – or decide they do not wish to be the Paladin to take the talent, but, let us really look at this. It is an incredibly nice talent as it reduces the cool down of this life saving ability by 20 minutes and it also gives the target 30% extra armor bonus for its duration. Really, in some fights (such as Gruul) this can be an absolute life saver and at the end of the day this is a no brainer choice too. Quite obviously, this talent only has PvE or raid purposes. You will never see this used for a Player versus Player match as there is just no point.
Unyielding Faith (Ranks 2/2) — This is a typical PVE and PVP talent. You receive a 10% extra chance to resist fears and disorient effects, and this is quite obviously situational. But that goes for a lot of things, and in the end it all adds up! This talent is great and a must for any paladin that wants to perform and survive at the same time. This is arguably not the most important, but, it is a good place to put your points at any rate.
Illumination (Ranks 5/5) — After getting a critical effect from your Flash of Light, Holy Shock or Holy Light spell, gives a 20%-100% chance to gain 60% mana equal to the base cost of the spell. This is the core of a Paladin’s mana regeneration. We all know it, no further explanation is needed, except that, later I will cover how you will want to balance crit/mp5 and +healing.
Improved Blessing of Wisdom (Ranks 2/2) — Every paladin should have this. It increases the effect of your Blessing of Wisdom by 10%-20%. It helps a guild or raid group a lot overall if all paladins spec into this, since you cannot always depend on just one person. The benefits of more mana regeneration are obvious. What I want to stress is that it is well worthwhile to have this, especially since you will hopefully be doing more than just raiding. In all situations having this talent is a great thing. Do not leave home without it kids!
Pure of Heart (Ranks 3/3) — This talent increases your resistance to Curse and Disease effects by 5-15%. A 15% resistance to Curse and Disease effects is great, especially since Paladins cannot even remove curse effects, so this effectively gives them a 15% chance to not get something on them that they cannot remove, unless a bubble or consumable is used in its place and that can be wasteful. My view is that a Paladin is a class with great survivability, and the few weaknesses we have are those that we should try to fix. By getting this talent, you reduce one of the largest weaknesses a Paladin has by 15%. This is great for PVE as there is less cleansing needed for disease effects and 15% less worrying to get that Mage or Druid to decurse you in the heat of battle.
Divine Favor (Rank 1/1) — This instant cast 2 minute cool down spell reads; When activated: Gives your next Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Holy Shock a 100% critical effect chance. Excellent talent which I use all the time and many other Paladins do as well. Really, it speaks for itself and there is no need to explain it. Who does not want a guaranteed critical strike?
Sanctified Light (Ranks 3/3) — Sanctified Light increases the critical strike chance of your Holy Light spell by 2-6%. With 6% more critical chance on Holy Light, it makes the spell even more of a powerful battalion. You should not have to think twice about this one.
Holy Power (Ranks 5/5) — Another critical talent, this time 5% on all holy spells. Again, this is very powerful and you should definitely be spending the points to get this.
Light’s Grace (Ranks 3/3) — Light’s Grace gives your Holy Light spell a 33-100% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by 0.5 seconds. This effect lasts 15 seconds. In order to keep up with other classes and reduce your over healing, you will want this talent. It helps you land those slow casting Holy Lights. You can also pre-heal with a lower rank to get the buff effect.
Holy Shock (Ranks 1/1) — This spell blasts the target with Holy energy, causing 205 to 219 Holy damage, or 205 to 219 healing to an ally. Therefore it is either an instant heal or instant damage. Do I need to say more? You really will want this for those tight moments.
Blessed Life (Ranks 3/3) — All attacks against you have a 10% chance to cause half damage. I realize some will argue this as not that necessary, but I digress. Having another survivability talent is a great thing. Especially if you compare with what else you could get for these 3 points. Not to mention you are already so deep into the Holy Tree. I will lay it out in the simplest terms: “All attacks have a 10% chance to cause half damage”. That is really quite good for survival, especially if you end up unlucky and have to tank several mobs that hit very fast, this talent can turn the tide for you and at the end of the fight you are still alive. It is also one of our key talents for survival in PVP. Really, think about it - you play a Paladin and not a Priest here; thus you are a Plate Healing Class with powerful talents that make you survive like no other healers, of course we should want to take advantage of it! In some situations, you may set yourself up to be the healer that gets attacked over others due to your plate wearing. This talent will come in use there.
Holy Guidance (Ranks 5/5) — This increases your spell damage and healing by 35% of your total intellect. More + healing and spell power is always welcome as a healing class. This is a very powerful talent.
Divine Illumination (Rank 1/1) — In a tight bind? Well, Divine Illumination reduces the mana cost of all spells by 50% for 15 seconds. This talent is great and very powerful if used correctly. It really helps our overall mana usage and can be excellent in that moment when you are really getting low on mana.
A typical healing raiding paladin who selects talents in the Protection tree will invest 11 talent points in the protection tree total, selecting Imp Devotion Aura (5/5), the new addition giving your party much needed armor to reduce damage from melee attacks and allowing you to have to heal a bit less, Guardian's Favor (2/2), Toughness (3/5 to 5/5) and finally Blessing of Kings (1/1) since an extra 10% to everyone's stats takes the edge off of new encounters and speeds up raid progression. Here is my explanation on these.



Protection Tree

Improved Devotion Aura (Ranks 5/5) — This increases the armor bonus of your Devotion Aura by 8-40%. Having your party (and the tank) take less overall damage is a great thing. The point is besides, we already have a lot of survivability talents from the Holy Tree, so the other option Redoubt is not as good. Not to mention Improved Devotion Aura gives us survivability as well and we are a support class after all is said and done.
Guardian’s Favor (Ranks 2/2) — This core talent reduces the cooldown of your Blessing of Protection by 120 seconds and increases the duration of your Blessing of Freedom by 3-6 seconds. A shorter cooldown on Blessing of Protection and a longer duration on Blessing of Freedom is a must.
Toughness (Ranks 3/5) — This increases your armor value from items by 6%/ While this is just more armor, it is primarily used here as a filler talent so we can get the next one with the one point we have to spare.
Blessing of Kings (Ranks 1/1) — Blessing of Kings places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing all stats by 10%. This is probably our best buff. Every Paladin should have this.


Hyacintha: Well, I guess that sums up talents pretty well.

Sevirus: Yes, now lass, I would like to give a more in depth explanation on some of the things I have mentioned.



The build I just outlined is a build I call “Divine Hero”. It is based around gear that balances mana per 5 and critical strike, but with the focus on +healing. Essentially, you need to take a look at your gear and decide what makes the most sense to get. This is not always an easy thing; it is something that comes with experience. People often ask me why I do not have only pure +healing gems for instance. My answer is that I believe in a balance of all stats. For instance, you need a certain amount of critical strike to make Illumination as useful as possible. It profoundly affects your overall mana regeneration and how long you will last in fights and certain situations. My general rule is that you should not have to hold back, ever, in any situation. You should be able to keep chain healing at all times, without having to go out of mana until the fight is over.

A decently well geared paladin should have around,

+2500 Healing
25% Crit chance on Holy spells
205 MP5
I feel this is fairly close to being the optimal Paladin balance of stats. There are a few minor upgrades one could get, but the core idea remains the same. I will of course get to gear later. To break it down more: you really want to balance Healing/Crit and Mp5. It is important to understand how and in what way, though. You should prioritize them in this way:

Healing
Critical
MP5
However, there is the fragile equilibrium I have mentioned earlier. To reach it is something you must ‘feel’ with your character, based on how well you do in fights. The golden rule is that you should never have to hold back. If you have to, then your gear is lacking a lot or you simply have not balanced the stats the right way. Many paladins think that getting lots of +healing is the way to go. However, many of them do not come to realize how wrong they are. Down-ranking, or casting a lower level spell instead of a higher one to either conserve mana or to trigger a buff, is a thing of the past in 95% of the situations, since as long you have the mana at the end of the fight and still have used max rank of your spells, then down-ranking is pretty pointless yes? Yes. Exactly, so if you balance Mana Regeneration per 5 second with Critical Spell Chance together with sufficient +healing you end up with a very powerful healing (holy) Paladin.

You want your Flash of Light to heal sufficiently. If this spell cannot keep up very well on trash for instance, or it does not top off your party fast enough, that is a first indication that your +healing is lacking. If you feel you do not critical enough to get your Illumination bonuses to kick in, that is a sign that you want more critical chance on spells. Also, obviously, mp5 is the overall mana regeneration that is ‘passive’ per se. You want some of this too. But remember, it’s the third thing you want to think of.

Let me make an example of all of this using the following item: Girdle of Hope.

Overall, this item is not the best when you first see it like it originally is, however, it does have the advantage of having two sockets that you can place gems in. Most Paladins first reaction would be to pop two healing gems in this bad boy. But, why should you really do that? The belt already has healing and critical strike – but what it lacks is Mana per five. Here we should decided that it is time to play the balance card. As it is a belt with decent stats to begin with, the logical choice and the best on is to socket it with two +Mana per 5 gems, say two +4 Mana per 5, giving the belt +8 Mp5 now, and it’s suddenly quite good, since it has all of the major stats. In one single item you have +Mana per 5, +healing, +critical strike, and decent stats. This suddenly makes the Girdle of Hope better than the Karazhan Paladin belt, the Girdle of Truth. With a little help, it has more mp5 and more +healing, more stats and also critical to spells. If you had socketed it with +healing, it would have had more +healing yes, but if you follow this path, you will quickly find that you stand there with too much +heal and you lack in the other stats. I feel that the gem that has +11 healing and 2MP5 is quite powerful. So it’s a great balance for the stats you will want to have.

It really is all about balance. Also, just to make it clear, I only wear plate items and will only talk about plate items in this guide. I will never recommend being a cloth, leather, mail paladin, as it just is not as efficient for what the Paladin can do. I suggest you aim for plate items as well. Obviously, this is not always possible — but we are a class that can wear plate armor — so we should really take advantage of it.

Another example is Crown of Empowered Fate. I chose this head item over the Lightbringer Greathelm because of the extra Critical Strike. At the time of this decision, I was lacking a bit in Crit and I still feel it was a good choice. It is not that big of a difference, sure. But as always, things add up. And you can really tell a difference if you balance your stats instead of just being ‘careless’ and focus on only one stat — trying to think you are doing it the right way. Think out of the box instead!

Finally, we have +healing. I choose to put three +22 healing gems in my Lightbringer Chestpiece to find the perfect balance between the three core stats. I use the epic gem with +healing and Mp5 in the rest. Again, you might ask “why” — and again I answer you: matter of balance. If you regenerate more mana, you can simply heal more and not hold back. Chances are that you over heal a lot anyway, so having way too high +healing is a bad thing. If you are running out of mana very quickly and not regenerating it, it is likely due to a stat imbalance. If you run out but can quickly compensate for it, you are doing it right. The fact is, you should also never be full of mana. This simply means you are not doing your job correctly. This is a fact. I have seen it many times in raids. There are always people who will need healing – you need to learn to manage properly.

Hyacintha: Wow. Well, I did not really know balance was that important. So, thanks for your insight. So, we have not actually touched on healing. Can you talk a little about that now?

Sevirus: Yes, this is key, lass. When you heal, you need to do two main things. Prioritize, and maintain mana.

The first part is establishing your healing priority and sticking to it. In a standard 5 man instance group you will have something like this for group composition: Tank, Healer, AOE DPS, DPS, Miscellaneous. In most cases, this list is also your healing priority list. Typically speaking your tank is the most important person to keep up with yourself being immediately next in line, it then rolls down to AOE DPS or DPS depending on the instance and then the miscellaneous person in the group. This will change based on individual situations but is the general rule. It is mainly the same in a raid situation as well. Sometimes your 'tank' will change, depending on gear setup or special circumstances such as having a mage tank.

The last part of healing priority is making sure that you know when to keep people up, and when to let them die. This is basically exceptions to the above order. There are situations such as the Mage or Warlock are doing mass AOE against a group that needs to die, or a single mob being left at low health and a last heal being available for the tank or DPS (where DPS would be more likely to be able to kill them), or any number of other specialized situations. While it is important to stick to the priority as much as possible, you should learn to recognize when exceptions to it are important as well. This is about personal judgment of course.

Now that you know the order you should heal, how do you make sure you have mana for everything? Which heals should you use when and why?

Holy Shock - This is your instant heal, but it is very mana inefficient and has a 30 second cool down. At level 70 it heals 913 to 987 healing to an ally. Because of the low amount that it heals, its high mana cost and its cool down you should only use it as a last resort to save someone, even then it probably won't be enough.

Flash of Light - 1.5 second cast meaning it is fairly fast spell but does not heal much. At level 70 it heals a friendly target for 448 to 502. It is very efficient but because it heals so little it is not always usable. It will probably be your first choice as a healing spell unless you are being out damaged.

Holy Light - Long heal at 2.5 seconds that heals lots of health. At level 70 it heals a friendly target for 2196 to 2446. It is slightly less efficient than Flash of Light but heals a lot more. This is the spell you will be using to heal bosses that are out damaging your flash of light heals or to catch up on heals so that you can revert to flash of light.

Lay of Hands - Varies (consumes all of your mana whether you have 0 or 6000)

The above is just a base look at healing efficiency though. There are many factors that change and enhance your healing, for example Flash of Light only benefits from 43% of your +healing while Holy Light gets 71% of it. Blessing of Light will also effect these numbers as it adds a lot to your +healing stat on that target. In most cases you will not need it on anyone other than the tank though. Use of divine favor and illumination increase the effectiveness of all of your heals as does holy power. Even when everything is added up though Flash of Light is more mana efficient than Holy Light, but will need to be mixed with Holy Light to keep up on big damage mobs.



Hyacintha: Well then! Can you tell me about gear now?

Sevirus: Why yes, missy. I was jus’ thinkin’ of it meself. Paladins will really want to be looking at tier gear, so, I have compiled a list for you here. You will start off with Tier 4 and move along as you go.

Boots of Valiance - Maiden of Virtue (Karazhan)
Bracers of Justice - Moroes (Karazhan)
Breastplate of the Lightbinder - Terestian Illhoof (Karazhan)
Emberspur Talisman - Nightbane (Karazhan)
Girdle of Truth - Netherspite (Karazhan)
Helm of the Fallen Champion - Prince Malchezaar (Karazhan)
Gloves of the Fallen Champion - The Curator (Karazhan)
Libram of Souls Redeemed - Opera Event (Karazhan)
Legplates of the Innocent - Chess Event (Karazhan)
Pauldrons of the Justice-Seeker - Shade of Aran (Karazhan)
Ribbon of Sacrifice - Opera Event (Karazhan)
Shard of the Virtuous - Maiden of Virtue (Karazhan)
Stainless Cloak of the Pure Hearted - Prince Malchezaar (Karazhan)
Triptych Shield of the Ancients - Chess Event (Karazhan)
Jade Ring of the Everliving - Prince Malchezaar (Karazhan)
Scarab of the Infinite Cycle - Aenous (Black Morass)
For the most part you will want to do a lot of Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep. Acquiring the full Crystalforge Raiment will take quite some time. It also depends on the way your guild distribute items of course. The best Tier 5 mace you can obtain is from Lady Vashj in Serpentshrine Cavern, Lightfathom Scepter. The ring listed below is from Zul’Aman. Many find it highly interesting that a 10-man zone has such high quality gear. Also as you notice, the libram from Karazhan still has not been replaced. Neither have the belt or trinkets.

After you have spent quite some time in both Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep, your gear should look something like this:

Crystalforge Raiment - Various bosses (Serpentshrine Cavern & Tempest Keep)
Lightfathom Scepter - Lady Vashj (Serpentshrine Cavern)
Lord Sanguinar’s Claim - Kael’thas Sunstrider (Tempest Keep)
Sunshower Light Cloak - Kael’thas Sunstrider (Tempest Keep)
Girdle of Truth - Netherspite (Karazhan)
Libram of Souls Redeemed - Opera Event (Karazhan)
Ribbon of Sacrifice - Opera Event (Karazhan)
Scarab of the Infinite Cycle - Aenous (Black Morass)
Signet of the Quiet Forest - Zul’Aman
Well, this will most likely take the longest, depending on where you are in the game right now and your guild. But, Tier 6 gear used to be exclusively in Black Temple and Hyjal Summit. However, with Patch 2.4 — you are now able to buy Tier 6 quality items with Badges of Justice. Also, Sunwell Plateau has items superior to Tier 6 gear. Let us call it Tier 6.5. I will list the most optimal tier 6 gear in my opinion. Usually it is a no brainer, but it also depends what you are able to obtain. Anyway, the most optimal gear is listed below. Interesting to note is that there is new Tier 6 boots available with Patch 2.4. I pick Shroud of the Highborne due to its spell haste. Spell haste is a lot more useful after the changes in 2.4. Same goes for the Dawnsteel Bracers.

Nadina’s Pendant of Purity - Mother Shahraz (Black Temple)
Crown of Empowered Fate - Reliquary of Souls (Black Temple)
Lightbringer Pauldrons - Mother Shahraz (Black Temple)
Shroud of the Highborne - Illidan Stormrage (Black Temple)
Lightbringer Chestpiece - Illidan Stormrage (Black Temple)
Dawnsteel Bracers - Various monsters (Black Temple)
Crystal Spire of Karabor - Illidan Stormrage (Black Temple)
Felstone Bulwark - Supremus (Black Temple)
Libram of Souls Redeemed - Opera Event (Karazhan)
Lightbringer Gloves - Azgalor (Hyjal Summit)
Girdle of Hope - Azgalor (Hyjal Summit)
Lightbringer Leggings - Illidari Council (Black Temple)
Lightbringer Treads
Band of the Eternal Restorer - Restorer’s Covenant (Hyjal Summit)
Blessed Band of Karabor - Various monsters (Black Temple)
Memento of Tyrande - Illidan Stormrage (Black Temple)
Ribbon of Sacrifice - Opera Event (Karazhan)
Keep in mind that tier gear is not the only good gear. Of course there are many items to choose from when it comes to crafted items or the Badge of Justice system. You will want to look at all of those options as well.

For some crafting or BOE ideas, you have:

Head - [Justicebringer 2000 Specs]

Neck - [Embrace of the Dawn] , [Living Ruby Pendant]

Back - [White Remedy Cape]

Wrist - [Blessed Bracers]

Belt - [Girdle of Divine Blessing] , [Khorium Belt] , [Belt of the Guardian]

Legs - [Slatesteel Leggings]

Feet - [Khorium Boots]

Trinket - [Figurine - Talasite Owl]

Weapon - [The Essence Focuser] , [The Ancient Scepter of Sue-Min]

Shield - [Crystal Pulse Shield]

Next, when it comes to gear, you must look at gems. The following is an excellent list of gems to go by. Remember to balance what you are doing.

Meta:
[Bracing Earthstorm Diamond] +26 Healing Spells & 2% Reduced Threat (Requires more Yellow gems than Blue gems. Requires more Red gems than Blue gems) - Crafted
[Insightful Earthstorm Diamond] +12 intellect Chance to restore mana on spellcast (Requires 2+ Red 2+ Blue and 2+ Yellow gems) - Crafted
[Destructive Skyfire Diamond] +14 spell critical rating 1% spell reflect (Requires 2+ Red 2+ Blue and 2+ Yellow gems) - Crafted
[Imbued Unstable Diamond] +14 spell 5% stun resist - Vendor Aether-tech Master 160 Aphexis Shards
[Mystical Skyfire Diamond] 5% on spellcast - next spell cast in half time (Requires more Blue gems than Yellow gems) - Crafted
[Swift Starfire Diamond] +12 spell, minor run speed increase (Requires 2+ Yellow and 1+ 1 Red gem) - ?

Yellow:
[Brilliant Lionseye] +10 int - Crafted
[Brilliant Dawnstone] +8 int - Crafted
[Brilliant Golden Draenite] +6 int - Crafted
[Brilliant Amber] +4 int - Vendors
[Gleaming Lionseye] +10 spell critical rating - Crafted
[Gleaming Ornate Dawnstone] +10 spell critical rating
[Gleaming Dawnstone] +8 spell critical rating - Crafted
[Gleaming Golden Draenite] +6 spell critical rating - Crafted
[Gleaming Amber] +4 spell critical rating

Blue:
[Lustrous Empyrean Sapphire] +4 mp5
[Lustrous Star of Elune] +3 mp5
[Lustrous Azure Moonstone] +2 mp5
[Lustrous Zircon] +1 mp5

Red:
[Teardrop Crimson Spinel] +22 Healing
[Teardrop Living Ruby] +18 healing
[Teardrop Blood Garnet] +13 healing
[Teardrop Tourmaline] +9 healing
[Runed Crimson Spinel] +12 spell
[Runed Ornate Ruby] +12 spell
[Runed Living Ruby] +9 spell
[Stark Blood Garnet] +8 spell
[Runed Blood Garnet] +7 spell
[Runed Tourmaline] +5 spell

Green:
[Dazzling Chrysoprase] +5 int +2 mp5
[Dazzling Seaspray Emerald] +5 int +2 mp5 - Crafted
[Timeless Chrysoprase] +5 int +6 stamina
[Dazzling Talasite] +4 int +2 mp5 - Crafted
[Dazzling Deep Peridot] +3 int +1 mp5 - Crafted
[Polished Chrysoprase] +6 sta +5 spell critical rating
[Notched Deep Peridot] +3 sta +4 spell critical rating
[Rune Covered Chrysoprase] +2 mp5 +5 spell critical rating
[Seer's Chrysoprase] +4 int +5 spirit

Orange:
[Luminous Pyrestone] +11 healing spells +5 int
[Luminous Fire Opal] +11 healing spells +4 int
[Luminous Noble Topaz] +9 healing +4 int
[Luminous Flame Spessarite] +7 healing +3 int
[Potent Ornate Topaz] +6 spell +5 spell critical rating
[Potent Pyrestone] +6 spell +5 spell critical rating
[Potent Fire Opal] +6 spell +4 spell critical rating
[Potent Noble Topaz] +5 spell +4 spell critical rating
[Potent Flame Spessarite] +4 spell +3 spell critical rating
[Infused Fire Opal] +6 spell damage +4 intellect
[Durable Fire Opal] +11 healing spells +4 resilience rating
[Iridescent Fire Opal] +11 healing +4 spell critical rating

Purple:
[Royal Tanzanite] +11 healing +2 mp5
[Royal Shadowsong Amethyst] +11 healing +2 mp5
[Royal Nightseye] +9 healing +2 mp5
[Royal Shadow Draenite] +7 healing +1 mp5
[Soothing Amethyst] +11 healing +6 stamina
[Glowing Shadowsong Amethyst] +6 spell damage +7 stamina
[Glowing Tanzanite] +6 spell damage +6 stamina
[Infused Amethyst] +6 spell damage +6 stamina
[Glowing Nightseye] +5 spell damage +6 stamina
[Glowing Shadow Draenite] +4 spell damage +4 stamina
[Imperial Tanzanite] +9 healing +5 spirit
[Purified Shadow Pearl] +9 healing +4 spirit
[Purified Jaggal Pearl] +7 healing +3 spirit
[Fluorescent Tanzanite] +6 spell damage +4 spirit

As far as enchantments go, here is my list of recommendation.

Head: Glyph of Renewal
Shoulder: Greater Inscription of Faith
Chest: Enchant Chest - Exceptional Stats
Wrist: Enchant Bracer - Superior Healing
Gloves: Enchant Gloves - Major Healing
Legs: Golden Spellthread
Boots: Enchant Boots - Vitality
Shield: Enchant Shield - Intellect
Weapon: Enchant Weapon - Major Healing

Hyacintha: Thanks for that pretty expansive list! Now, consumables are pretty important right now. What do you recommend?

Sevirus: I would honestly say to use Brilliant Mana Oil (the old version, not the cheap new one), Blackened Sporefish for your food, and either a Flask of Mighty Restoration or Flask of Distilled Wisdom.

Hyacintha: Simple enough. So, now can you go over some addons?

Sevirus: Of course, lassie.

Here is a list of what I consider the most important addons for paladins. Apart from these listed here, you can have whatever addons that fit your taste and needs inside and outside of raids.



PallyPower

A must have for any raiding paladin. Extremely handy for keeping track of your blessings as well as a way to easily assign them. If you or any of your paladins don't have this already, download and try it and you'll soon be wondering how you ever managed without it. Worth noting that it can act weird while in combat (such as giving the wrong blessing or none at all) so if you have to do combat rebuffs, do it the old-fashioned way instead.

Grid

This is a popular addon for raidunitframes, showing HP, debuffs, aggro, etc. What can I say, one of the core add-ons that truly help you as a healer. Best raid frames period. Grid is a modular, lightweight and screen-estate saving grid of party/raid unit frames. It takes quite awhile to configure it the way you’d like it to be I bet. Don’t let that scare you away though!



oRA2

A simple mod to manage raidutilities, and for us paladins mainly used for Main Tank targets, MT target's target, Player targets, etc. Since paladins mainly heal tanks, as a paladin you should be 100% aware of the hit points of all the tanks all the time.

Unitframes

As a healer you need a good mod for keeping track of everybody's health, targets, target of target, focustargets, mt targets, etc. I have used two unitframes in the last six months and can recommend them both.

The first one is Pitbull. Lots of configuration choices to fit your needs. Currently I'm using Xperl Unitframes and so far I am pretty pleased with it. Earlier I was a loyal fan of the Nurfed UI, but when it got to a point where I felt I needed more options, and that it was not updated enough, I switched to Pitbull.

Hyacintha: Are there any macros you would recommend?

Sevirus: Well, two come to mind right away.

First is the Blessing of Protection whisper macro. This macro will whisper the target you BoP. It is great for several reasons. If you accidentally BoP a tank, they will get a whisper and click it off faster. You will also notify other classes that might think you are lazy and never BoP. This is something that is very normal to hear. Sadly, most people in the raid do not have a clue. So by whispering them when they get BoP’d they will quickly learn to appreciate being saved. Obviously it is a great overall way to notify your target that they have been saved so they can take appropriate actions.

/cast Blessing of Protection
/script SendChatMessage(”** BoP on you! **”, “WHISPER”, nil, UnitName(”target”))
The next is the Divine Intervention whisper macro. This macro is similar to the BoP macro and whispers the target you attempt to cast DI on. Nothing special about it, but it is nice to let the person know who DI’d them. Also, I would never ever bind DI to a key, instead I mouseclick it. Accidentally DI’ing someone would be extremely silly.

/cast Divine Intervention
/script SendChatMessage(”** DI on you! **”, “WHISPER”, nil, UnitName(”target”))
Hyacintha: Do you have any tips for other Holy Paladins out there?

Sevirus: Yes I do and here they are.

Taunt! off of Clothies!



When you have your Blessing of Protection on cool down, you can still taunt mobs off aggro happy clothies. To do this, use your taunt and run towards a tank to let him take back the mob. You can either use a macro, or manually self the mob or the player in order to taunt. See what works best for you.

Remove a blessing from someone in need!

If someone needs a blessing removed, we do not actually have to tell the player to remove it, we can do that ourselves. For example the warlock tank during phase three on Illidan will need Blessing of Salvation when DPSing, but obviously should not have it when tanking. If he forgets to remove Blessing of Salvation when starting to tank, the paladin who does Blessing of Salvation can remove it by doing Blessing of Sacrifice or Blessing of Freedom on him. This also works if you accidentaly happen to Blesssing of Protection a tank, which you should never ever do, or if you Blessing of Protection a rogue/dps warrior.

Know your priorities!

As a healer, you will need to know who is more important in a fight. Many times you have to choose which players to keep alive. Of course the main tank is the most important. Most fights end with a wipe if the main tank dies. As a paladin, nothing is more important than keeping the main tank alive. If it is about saving either the main tank or yourself, you can only save yourself if more people are healing the main tank. Since that is normally the case, you can in most cases heal yourself over main tank. However, you should be ready for situations when other healers cannot heal the main tank. Then you can heal the main tank until you die or use Divine Shield and heal. If fast healing is really needed, then use Lay on Hands. However, be aware that unless you have a Mana Potion or a Dark Rune/Demonic Rune cool down ready, then you will be out of mana after that Lay on Hands.

Keep those blessings going!

If someone gets combat resurrected during a fight, make sure you bless them as soon as you can. Blessings are cheap, and some are crucial, like Blessing of Salvation for damage classes and Blessing of Kings for everyone. Basically all blessings should be on at all times, on the right people. Just make sure to not pop the wrong blessings on the wrong people.

Have a fast Holy Light ready!

You can do a down ranked Holy Light every 15 seconds or so to always have the Light's Grace buff up for faster Holy Lights when needed. A 2 second Holy Light instead of a 2.5 second one can be the difference between life and death. Keep it up!

Use Divine Shield to protect others!

Use your Divine Shield tactically. Not only can it be used to simply protect yourself, but also as a way of more effectively keeping others alive. For example, if you have lots of environmental damage around you that makes healing the main tank harder (like on Archimonde and Supremus), then simply pop your Divine Shield and feel free to stand in fire or volcanoes while healing the main tank. Another example of tactical use of Divine Shield is on Reliquary of Souls phase 3. Simply use Divine Shield when Reliquary of Souls has around 30% hit points left, both to make it easier for raid healers, and to guarantee your survival for another 12 seconds. The last example is to use it when silenced and the main tank is under threat of dying during this silence.

Give the tank 30% more armor when it is necessary!

Since you all should have improved Lay on Hands, use a rotation among the Paladins on bosses that hit extremely hard to give the main tank a 30% increase of armor towards the end of a fight. For a Protection warrior with 20,000 armor, that means he can have 26,000 armor for the last six minutes of the fight with three paladins and an armor buff that lasts for two minutes. Announce in your paladin channel when you have used it. Just make sure you only use Lay on Hands controlled, so that you have a Mana Potion cooldown ready.

Hyacintha: Thanks so much Sevirus. Are there any last minute things you should say?

Sevirus: Yes miss. Some things to remember no matter what are -

Stick to healing priority no matter how much some players complain, explain what you are doing and why and ask them to manage their aggro better so that they will not need heals.
You can not keep anyone one up if you are dead, ensure you watch your own health bar too.
Never shield a tank since it will cause them to drop aggro!
Use Lay of Hands only as a final resort or if you are completely out of mana.
It is critical to keep buffs up on everyone in the group.
You can wear any armor. Never be too proud to wear cloth if it has a much better healing bonus, just do not wear too much or you will not be able to take a hit. However, I still strongly recommend using plate as it is the most well rounded for what you will want to do.
You are a Healer, a critical member of a group. You never need to put up with other people bullying you - so if the group is bad or bossy, leave.
Hyacintha: Sevirus, I could not have asked for a better helped in finding out all of this information. Thanks so much for all of your help and I look forward to working with you again! Until next time, this has been Hyacintha, your very own Skryer Enchantress. I hope you have a wonderful time healing!