The Holy Paladin rework at the start of July did wonders to rejuvenate the spec and bring it closer to the expectations of those who play it. With that in mind, here are our recommendations for playing as the Light’s Healer in World of Warcraft: The War Within.
Heading into the release of this latest expansion, Holy Paladin has secured its spot as the most effective overall healer in the game. The switch back to a focus on Avenging Wrath has done wonders for its output and playability, making it likely that the spec will feature heavily in both Mythic+ and raids.
Some of the historical challenges of playing the spec remain, including a noticeable lack of mobility, but it isn’t really suffering as a result. The only major drawback at the time of writing is a lack of outgoing damage options that will make it a pain if healers need to pitch in for damage checks.
Holy Paladin Class changes in The War Within
Longtime Holy Paladin players will notice quite a few changes from their setup during Dragonflight, though many are currently coming out as a net positive. The removal of both Glimmer of Light and Daybreak may seem like a nerf in the first instance, but it has actually resulted in a spec that is far more playable and intuitive. This leaves all of the emphasis on Holy Shock and, while it is a bit one-note at times, it’s also extremely effective at what it does.
The relationship between Holy Light and Infusion of Light has also changed drastically. Infusion now buffs the healing done by Holy Light by 100%, rather than increasing its Holy Power generation. While this may lead to more downtime, it’s now an incredibly potent heal when used under the right circumstances. The primary issue will be mana usage, and mitigating this is important if you want to avoid going OOM.
Talents like Light of the Martyr and Divine Favor are now passives and heavily reduce the onus placed on the player. That is a big part of why the spec is now so playable and approachable in its current state, particularly when compared to the keymapping nightmare of earlier patches.
All of that seems to be part of a streamlining effort from Blizzard that seeks to make the spec more logical in its function. Direct heals are the order of the day, with an immense toolkit of cleanses and passive buffs to add to the equation.
Holy Paladin talents and build
In our attempts to find and illustrate the best that Holy Paladin has to offer, we’ve settled on a talent build geared towards prowess in Mythic+. As with any WoW build, the following recommendations can be altered to make them more suitable for other settings.
Most Holy Paladin players will be running Herald of the Sun in their complementary Hero Talent tree (more on that later), so bursty healing is likely to be the order of the day in most cases. Even if you do decide to forego Herald of the Sun, the build below is equally optimized for Lightsmith.
To start with the Paladin class tree, much of the build will be familiar to those who played the class during Dragonflight. Much builds into the critical utility of the class, elevating it above many of its immediate peers thanks to the broad range of benefits it offers.
Emergency heals and extra options for the toolkit come quickly thanks to talent nodes like Lay on Hands, Blinding Light, several Blessings and a necessary interrupt in Rebuke. Additional potency options are also crucial here, with Holy Paladins also able to bring significant output to the table thanks to Avenging Wrath, Hammer of Wrath and Divine Toll.
The Holy tree is where the spec comes into its own, dovetailing well with the broader class design for Paladins. The whole tree starts with Holy Shock, and it is that ability that allows the rest of the spec to function. It generates Holy Power and is a very impressive heal in its own right, and that’s all before it potentially procs Infusion of Light when it crits.
Much of the early portion of the build is centered around passive buffs, allowing Holy to be very potent without much in the way of rotational exertion. Extrication, Light’s Conviction, Beacon of the Lightbringer and Awestruck all offer significant increases to healing output, or a higher chance to crit in combat.
The other big active talents to look out for in the earlier parts of the build are Aura Mastery and Holy’s big AoE heal Light of Dawn. From there, the tree builds in two halves, adding further actives to the rotation and improving their overall efficacy, as well as fleshing out some damage options for occasions where you may need to pitch in.
Avenging Wrath: Might is the best play in the center of the tree, with the Critical Strike chance buff applicable to both healing and damage. The last major area that this build seeks to address is resource usage and generation, with nodes like Glorious Dawn, Truth Prevails, and Rising Sunlight serving as nifty ways to save precious Holy Power and Mana via free procs or general cost reduction.
Hero Talents
As briefly mentioned earlier in this guide, most Holy Paladin players will want to avoid the Lightsmith Hero Talent tree entirely. Despite its intriguing theme, it lags behind in Mythic+ and isn’t able to match the important burst offered by Herald of the Sun in a raid setting.
Sticking with the latter, the Keystone Dawnlight talent can be a little tricky to incorporate into the Holy playstyle at first, but boy, is it strong when you do. Essentially, it is your job to maintain the Dawnlight status effect on your party members or enemies, with the ability then able to deal significant radiant damage when you do.
For the different choice nodes, you’ll want to stick with down-the-line extra buffs that don’t convolute how the spec plays. Morning Star buffs the damage or healing of Dawnlight further (stacking up to ten times), though you can also go for Gleaming Rays if you prefer potency buffs that are less dependent on your ability to maintain stacks.
Illumine is a nice movement speed buff/debuff for enemies and allies. The final choice node is again down to preference here with Lingering Radiance arguably the better option if you are able to really optimize Dawnlight. Blessing of An’She offers a less reliable proc that remains strong regardless of its frequency.
We have included an optional Lightsmith build below, all of it centered around the high-potential Holy Armaments Keystone talent. This allows a friendly target to wield a Holy Bulwark or Sacred Weapon, which offers an absorb or buffs damage/healing respectively.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
This tree actually has the potential to be excellent without complicating the Holy Paladin spec further. Unfortunately, it needs some further tuning to make it truly competitive with Herald of the Sun.
Stat priority
Unpacking the stat priority for Holy Paladin is a bit of a complex equation that takes some decrypting. The difference between raids and Mythics is also noticeable and the priority shifts more noticeably than with other healing specs. As such, we’ll break down both below, starting with raid priority:
- Intellect
- Critical Strike
- Mastery
- Versatility
- Haste
Haste is an interesting stat here because it reduces the cooldown of your staple heal (Holy Shock) and the cast time of other key parts of the rotation, like Flash of Light and Holy Light. While this is obviously nice to have, the raid encounters in The War Within demand consistent, powerful heals, and you shouldn’t find yourself restricted by the baseline levels, hence Haste’s lack of precedence here.
The overall boost provided by Mastery is the play here, allowing the spec to enjoy a noticeable increase in its overall effectiveness. Buffing abilities across the board is always going to be a reliable avenue to go down and that’s particularly true in raiding, where fights go on for so long and abilities are used so many times.
In Mythic+, that landscape changes significantly, with our recommendations as follows:
- Intellect
- Critical Strike
- Haste
- Versatility
- Mastery
This boils down to whether we want to rely on the Mastery crutch or gamble on the higher ceiling that the other stats provide. In Mythic+, it’s far more beneficial to have shorter cast times and cooldowns so you can stay on top of the rapidly changing encounter. Quicker mechanics necessitate us being able to make the most of our time, particularly considering the spec’s lack of mobility.
Versatility is also an underrated pick in some circles, providing an impressive buff to outgoing healing if used effectively. It also reduces incoming damage by half the amount, hopefully allowing players to focus on their allies, rather than simply maintaining themselves.
Rotation
As with any Healing spec, you’re going to have to work situationally and be able to respond to rapid changes in circumstance. That said, there are some general rules you’ll want to be sticking to in order to make sure that you don’t get caught out when it’s time to drop big heals.
Generally, you’ll want to pop one of your high-cost Holy Power abilities each time you reach the cap of five (largely to avoid any potential wasted resource generation). Beacon of Virtue and Light of Dawn are the big AoE plays for the spec, with the latter being a great option for restoring group health en masse, after unavoidable damage rains in from a boss.
Holy Light and Holy Shock are your go-to single-target heals, with the latter the best source of Holy Power generation available to the spec. Additionally, working in the opportunity to increase Holy Power by using damaging abilities like Crusader Strike also works well.
With all of that in mind, a basic rotation to follow in Mythic+ looks something like this:
- Maintain Beacon of Virtue from start to finish for HoT across dungeon groups.
- Holy Light tank heal to prove Infusion of Light
- Holy Shock to generate Holy Power
- Crusader Strike
- Judgment
- Holy Prism
- Back to Beacon of Virtue
- Hammer of Wrath
Maintaining AoE heals should be enough to keep your DPS players topped up (as long as there is not too much unavoidable damage and the Tank holds aggro well.) Peppering in damage abilities should also put you in a great position to burst heal the Tank when required and make the jobs of the rest of the group a little easier.
Holy Paladin Tier Set breakdown
The Heartfire Sentinel’s Authority provides nice, focused boosts to the way Holy Paladin sets up. It actually applies itself better to this spec than other Paladin roles, and it should make a noticeable difference in Mythic+.
The 2-piece set bonus sees Holy Shock heals pop off for 80% extra damage, which in turn reduces the cooldown of Light’s Hammer and Holy Prism by two and one second, respectively.
After you manage to secure the 4-piece set bonus, the healing of Light’s Hammer will take place twice as often while active, granting three Holy Power as it does. Additionally, Holy Prism’s overall healing is increased by 40%, generating one Holy Power when cast at an enemy or three if directed at an ally.
The latter is very much worth having, buffing staple abilities significantly and with more tangible benefits than you will likely find wearing offset armor. This is particularly true for Light’s Hammer, which should prove popular across the board, though Holy Prism will undoubtedly have its place in the rotation during shorter engagements.
Gems and Enchants
The gem and enchant landscape is fairly simple; particularly with Holy Paladin, there is one clear option for each slot during the endgame. The full breakdown of the best enchants available is as follows:
| Slot | Best Enchantment |
|---|---|
| Weapon | Enchant Weapon – Authority of Fiery Resolve |
| Cloak | Enchant Cloak – Chant of Leeching Fangs |
| Chest | Enchant Chest – Crystalline Radiance |
| Bracers | Enchant Bracer – Chant of Armored Leech |
| Legs | Sunset Spellthread |
| Boots | Enchant Boots – Defender’s March |
| Rings | Enchant Ring – Radiant Critical Strike/Enchant Ring – Radiant Haste |
You’ll want to lock in on the Elusive Blasphemite as your major gem slot option for the Holy Paladin. The Primary Stat boost and extra movement speed make it a no-brainer and a must-have for endgame content.
That’s our complete guide to playing Holy Paladin in WoW: The War Within Patch 11.0.2. Check out our Healer tier list to see how the spec is performing right now. If you’re considering changing roles, we also have a full breakdown of Tank and DPS specs.