Holy Paladin PVE Guide – Cataclysm

Welcome to the PVE Holy Paladin Guide for World of Warcraft Cataclysm!

This guide will teach you how to play a Holy Paladin in a raid. It covers talents, glyphs, gems, enchantments, rotation, and gameplay tips.

This talent build takes the standard Holy Paladin talents.

Prime Glyphs

• Glyph of Divine Favor
• Glyph of Seal of Insight
• Glyph of Word of Glory

Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Divine Plea
• Glyph of Divinity
• Glyph of Divine Protection

Minor Glyphs

• Glyph of Blessing of Kings
• Glyph of Blessing of Might
• Glyph of Insight

Gems are situational and depend on the build and equipment. They are used to reach the required stat caps.

• Meta – Ember Shadowspirit Diamond
• Red/Prismatic – Brilliant Queen’s Garnet, Brilliant Inferno Ruby, or Brilliant Chimera’s Eye (Jewelcrafting)
• Yellow
  • If Socket Bonus is not at least +10 Intellect or +20 Spirit/Haste, Brilliant Queen’s Garnet or Brilliant Inferno Ruby (cheaper)
  • Otherwise, Reckless Lava Coral or Reckless Ember Topaz
• Blue – Purified Shadow Spinel or Purified Demonseye

• Head – Arcanum of the Hyjal
• Shoulder – Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone or Felfire Inscription (Inscription)
• Cloak – Enchant Cloak – Greater Intellect or Lightweave Embroidery (Tailoring)
• Chest – Enchant Chest – Peerless Stats
• Bracers – Enchant Bracer – Mighty Intellect or Greater Speed or Exceptional Spirit or Draconic Embossment – Intellect (Leatherworking) with Socket Bracer (Blacksmithing)
• Gloves – Enchant Gloves – Haste with Synapse Springs (Engineering) or Socket Gloves (Blacksmithing)
• Waist – Grounded Plasma Shield (Engineering) or Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
• Legs – Powerful Ghostly Spellthread or Sanctified Spellthread (Tailoring)
• Boots – Enchant Boots – Lavawalker or Enchant Boots – Haste
• Rings – Enchant Ring – Intellect (Enchanting)
• Weapon – Enchant Weapon – Power Torrent or Enchant Weapon – Heartsong
• Off-hand – Enchant Off-Hand – Superior Intellect

Take Spirit until you’re happy with your mana regeneration. Haste is only useful up if you can hit soft caps, so don’t bother adding extra haste until you can reach the next cap.

• Intellect
• Spirit
• Haste
• Critical Strike
• Mastery

Healing as a Holy Paladin is reactive based on what is happening to your raid members, so there is no set rotation. Instead, use the following priority suggestions — note that even when damage gets high on some raid members, you can continue using the lower-heal spells on top of the more powerful ones as needed, except where noted.

Healing Priority

• Low/moderate damage on tank or raid
  • Use Holy Light
  • Use Holy Shock on cooldown
  • Use Word of Glory (or Light of Dawn for AoE heals) if you need to conserve mana
• Moderate/high single-target damage
  • Start using Divine Light
• Moderate/high raid damage
  • Start using Holy Radiance
• High single-target damage
  • Use Divine Light as necessary
  • Stop using Holy Light
• High sustained raid damage
  • Use Holy Radiance
  • Use Light of Dawn, and know that this will heal your Beacon of Light Target
• Life or death damage
  • Use Flash of Light, only if you don’t think you’ll be able to finish casting Divine Light before the target dies

Cooldowns

• Use Judgement at least once a minute to refresh Judgements of the Pure
• Use Crusader Strike off cooldown to generate Holy Power
• Melee the Boss when safe to regen mana via Seal of Insight
• Make sure your Beacon of Light is on a target as assigned, generally the tank