Holy Paladin PvP in Warlords

Updated for Warlords of Draenor

• Hit, Expertise, Resilience, and PvP Power are all dead.
• There have been a few changes to Paladins, some of which will be noted below, and more for healing in general and Holy Pals in particular. You can check them out on our Paladin changes post.

Note that this guide is oriented toward level 100 players, though lower levels should be able to get  quite a bit from it. If you need to get to the level cap  then our recommendation is either dungeon leveling, PvP leveling (slower,) or grabbing a leveling guide to speed you along your way.

There’s a pretty fair amount of flexibility with Holy, depending on whether you’re in 2s, 3s, 5s, BG, who your teammates are, your personal style, and so on. This page is a general Holly Pally PvP guide, rather than being specific to Arena 2s, for example.

Holy Paldin PvP Contents

Video – Gearing up in Warlords Holy Talents Stats that you need Gems that you need Enchants for the last little bit Professions Race for yet another little bit Macros to make life easier Basic tips and Videos Leveling to get to 100 faster

Other Paladin Guides Holy PvP Gearing Holy PvE Retribution PvP Retribution PvE Protection PvE Paladin Overview Leveling fast

 

 

Gearing Your Paladin in Warlords.

This is a video from Skill Capped on general gearing in Warlords. (Check ’em out, here.) It’s not specific to any one class, rather it gives you an idea of how the system works this time around.

Also see our Holy Paladin Gear Guide for more info and tips on gearing up.

 

Holy Paladin Talents for PvP

These are for general situations, feel free to switch up for specific situations (duels, BGs, arena, etc.). Just make sure you have a stack of Tomes always ready. Descriptions are below the image and our picks are checked:

Note that all of the talents have uses, none are bad. Actually a nice place to be.

Talent Descriptions

Tier 1, level 15:

1. Speed of Light – because we love the burst movement, when you need to be somewhere right now. It’s only problem is the 45 sec cooldown. If that’s short enough then this is a great pick.
   
2. Long Arm of the Law – How often do you use Judgment? All the time? Then this is your pick. Judgement’s 6 second cooldown means you have a lot of extra dashes when you need them. If you’re highly judgmental then this is your pick. (Especially since you’re probably taking Selfless Healer.)
3. Pursuit of Justice – Just a general movement add, no dashes or sprints. It’s pretty good when you have 3 HP up.

Tier 2, level 30:

What kind of CC do you need, today?

1. Fist of Justice is a pretty decent choice. Stunned opponents take no actions. Reasonably short coo9ldown.
2. Repentance – because it can take someone out of the fight for a few seconds, until they take some damage. Short cooldown.
3. Blinding light – 2 min cooldown, but it stuns all in the area. If you like to be in the middle of things then this might be a good choice.

Tier 3, level 45:

1. Selfless Healer – Your Judgments give you faster and empowered Flash of Light casts. Also, those judgements will give you a burst of speed if you took Long Arm of the Law, from row 1.
2. Eternal Flame –
3. Sacred Sheild – because it absorbs a lot of damage and is hard for dispellers to get rid of. It costs no resources (no mana, no HP) which is a rather nice plus. The absorb can also crit, so another reason to get your crit rating up.

Tier 4, level 60:

All have their uses, but Spirit and Clemancy will be your “go to” talents mostly.

1. Hand of Purity – Very nice only if you’re going up against DOT heavy teams (eg: affliction Warlorcks, Unholy DKs, etc.) Short duration and too specialized for general use.
2. Unbreakable Spirit is a good talent, esp. if you use those defensive spells a lot, such as when getting constantly trained. Otherwise, Clemency is more generally useful.
3. Clemancy – because you can use more Hand spells, such as two Hand of Freedom’s in a row. If you’re not going to be swapping talents then keep this one.

Tier 5, level 75:

1. Holy Avenger – Just not quite there with heals having fairly lengthy cast times.
2. Sanctified Wrath – reduces Holy Shock’s cooldown by 50% and increases it’s crit chance by 20% while Avenging Wrath is up, in addition to increasing AW’s duration. This will make you an indestructible healing machine (or close to it) for the duration of Avenging Wrath.
3. Divine Purpose – No burst, but maybe up often enough to be interesting. You’ll get several procs during an Arena and many in a BG. Sanc. Wrath, as a cooldown, gives you burst heals when you want them.

Tier 6, level 90:

1. Holy Prism – because it’s a pretty serious heal and damage and it’s instant and the A of E beams will knock an enemy out of stealth if he’s within 15 yards of the prism. Also use on yourself or party members. Very flexible.
2. Light’s Hammer just isn’t enough.
3. Execution Sentence has a big tick at the beginning (once you get the perk,) but just isn’t quite up to Prism.

Tier 7, level 100:

1. Beacon of Faith: Your Beacon of Light can now be placed on two targets. Very nice when fighting DOT heavy teams. Should go well with Hand of Purity, from row 4.
2. Beacon of Insight: You place a Beacon of Insight on an ally which greatly improved your next single target  heal directed towards that ally. When consumed, or the target is healed, the beacon moves to the next most injured ally (within 40 yards.)
3. Saved by the Light: When your Beacon of Light target drops below 30% you instantly grant them a shield equal to 30% of their health for 10 seconds. You cannot shield the same target twice within one minute. This one is the most generally useful of the three.

 

 

The Glyphs

You get several glyphs that are learned automatically. These are:

1. At level 25, Glyphs of: Harsh Words, Flash of Light, Alabaster Shield, Dazing Shield, Avenging Wrath, Templar’s Verdict
2. At level 50, Glyphs of: Denounce, Divine Storm, Word of Glory
3. At level 75, Glyphs of: Light of Dawn, Final Wrath, Double Jeopardy

Major glyphs

More or less in order on interest.

1. Glyph of Beacon of Light – Removes the global cooldown from your Beacon of light, which lets you react a bit more quickly.
2. Glyph of Denounce* – Shorter cast times for your next Denounce. Denounce does damage and lessens the enemy damage (by reducing their crit chance.) You’ll likely be spamming it, might as well get that faster cast time.
3. Glyph of Merciful Wrath – 90 second cooldown for Avenging Wrath, but a lesser effect. That still might be enough to let you keep everyone topped off, esp. if you’re using the Sanctified Wrath talent.
4. Glyph of Blessed Life – Gives you a point of Holy Power whenever your are feared, stunned, or immobilized. Since each of those will happen way too often this is a pretty nice glyph. If you’re not the focus of attention then it’s not much use.
5. Glyph of Burden of Guilt which causes Judgment to reduce the target’s movement speed by 50% for 2 seconds.
6. Glyph of Divine Protection – Adds physical damage reduction to your Divine protection ability, at the cost of magical protection. Nice for BGs.
7. Glyph of Divine Shield: Removing harmful effects with Divine Shield heals the Paladin for each effect removed. This heal cannot exceed a percentage of the Paladin’s maximum health.
8. Glyph of Cleanse, two charges, but a longer cooldown. More flexibility is nice when cleansing.
9. Glyph of Hand of Sacrifice: Hand of Sacrifice no longer transfers damage taken by the target to the Paladin.

Minor glyphs

1. Glyph of the Righteous Retreat – Improves your great escape.
   

 

Holy Paladin PvP Stats

Warlords notes: Int no longer provides any crit rating, but you do start with a base 5%. At level 90 you also get an “Attuned” stat (this is the stat that Bliz think will most increase “thoughput”,) so you’re starting at 10% at 90+. This +5%, from all sources, comes from your new Sanctified Light ability.

Your general stat priority is:

• Int > Crit > Haste > Versatility > Mastery > Spirit > Multistrike
• Crit and Haste because you’re going to be endlessly trained. If you’re not being trained then Haste is better.

Intellect increases your spell power and chance to Crit with spells. Increasing Intellect will increase your healing throughput and your heals will return more health to your target per spell.

Critical Strike, or Crit, is another decent stat to accumulate for a Holy Paladin. Critical Strikes when using Holy Shock activate our passive Infusion of Light.  The reduced cast times on Holy Light, Divine Light, and Holy Radiance makes topping off you and your teammates much easier, and can make a huge difference in how a PvP encounter plays out.

Haste  reduces the cast time of your abilities and reduces the duration of the Global Cooldown (the minor cooldown that is invoked after casting spells). Haste helps to ensure your important spell casts go uninterrupted (Holy Light, Divine Light, etc.), an important factor in PvP, as there are several interrupt mechanics in the game.  Although beneficial, the reduced cast times do not justify allocation out of other important secondary stats.

• Divine Favor can also be used in a pinch, when additional haste and crit is required for survival.  This ability is quite potent, as it also increases the crit chance of Holy Shock even further, which could lead to even faster casts via Infusion of Light

Versatility increase both your offensive damage and healing, as well as lessening damage taken. Again, it doesn’t help much if you can’t get spells off.

Mastery –  Holy Paladins benefit from Mastery: Illuminated Healing, which creates an damage absorb shield on targets you cast direct healing effects on.  This increases Holy Paladin throughput by a decent margin, as the overwhelming majority of Holy Paladin healing spells are considered direct healing. The value is lessened because the shields aren’t strong and you can’t shield anything if you can’t get your spells off. Mastery is more valuable if you are not being trained.

Multistrike gives you a chance for one or two additional heals (or attacks) on your spells, at 30% effect.

Spirit  – While mana efficiency is pretty solid for Holy Paladins, Spirit helps to ensure your mana pool is not depleted over the course of a PvP encounter. If you’re always full up on mana then get rid of some of your Spirit, in favor of Mastery or Crit.

 

Holy Paladin PvP Gearing, “How To,” Questions Answered, & More. Get Better: Skill Capped. 

 

Holy Paladin Gems

Grab this addon if you need more gold for your gem, gear, enchant, mount, and toy buying.

Some Warlords Notes

There is no PvP gemming. Maybe next season. 

 

• Gems sockets do occasionally appear on PvE gear, so perhaps they’ll someday appear on PvP gear, as well.
• The gems themselves are actually available. They are all prismatic, meaning they fit into any socket. None have Int, they all have secondary stats (Mastery, etc.) Apparently there are no Meta sockets or gems.
• Older (Mists of Pandaria) gems work until item level 600, but the item squish cut them down a bit. What used to be 160 Int is now 10, for example. The new Prismatic gems are 50 points of Mastery or whatever.
• Older gems (Mists of Pandaria and lower) that used to code for Hit now do Crit, gems that had Expertise are now Haste.

Gemming for gear under ilevel 600:

If you’re leveling or hanging around a lower bracket then this will be a good gemming set up. If you’re much lower level then you can use similar gems. Remember that your Plate bonus adds to any Int gem bonuses, making them worth 5% more Int.

• Meta: Ember Primal Diamond until you can get Tyrannical Primal Diamond
• Red socket: Brilliant Primordial Ruby
• Yellow: Artful Vermilion Onyx or Smooth Sun’s Radiance
• Blue: Mysterious Imperial Amethyst or Stormy River’s Heart
• Prismatic (belt buckles, blacksmithing sockets:) Brilliant Primordial Ruby

So, Assuming the gems actually become available for level 100 PvP…

• Gem for Crit until you have around 15-20% total, then Haste.

Gem Priorities for Warlords
Prismatic		Greater Haste Taladite: +50 Haste Haste Taladite: +35 Haste Greater Critical Strike Taladite: +50 Crit Critical Strike Taladite: +35 Crit
Mists of Pandaria Gems, for gear under ilevel 600.
Meta		Burning Primal Diamond: +14 Int & 3% Increased Crit Effect Forlorn Primal Diamond: +14 Intellect and 10% Silence Reduction
Red		Brilliant Primordial Ruby: 10 Int
Yellow		Quick Sun’s Radiance: +20 Haste Smooth Sun’s Radiance: +20 Crit
Blue		Rigid River’s Heart: +20 Crit Lightning Wild Jade: +10 Haste and +10 Crit
Orange		Potent Vermilion Onyx: +5 Int & +10 Crit Reckless Vermilion Onyx: 5 Int, 10 Haste
Green		Energized Wild Jade: +10 Haste, +10 Spirit Piercing Wild Jade: +10 Critical Strike
Purple		Purified Imperial Amethyst: +5 Int, +10 Spirit Veiled Imperial Amethyst: 5 Int and 10 Crit
Cogwheel		Sparkling Tinker’s Gear: 38 Spirit – requires an engie helm, such as this. Quick Tinker’s Gear: 38 Haste Smooth Tinker’s Gear: 38 Crit

 

Holy Paladin PvP Enchantments

Warlords Notes:  Unlike Mists and previous expansion you cannot enchant most of your gear.  There are no head enchants, all shoulder enchants come from the Inscription profession and are only for items under items level 600.

There are new enchants for Neck, Cloak, Weapons, and your Rings. Not for any other pieces. (Not yet, anyway.)

Short on gold? If you want to buy the best enchants, fund all of your alts, donate to the guild, etc., but don’t have the cash, then see what the Tycoon Addon can do about about fixing your poverty.

 

Various Holy Pal Enchantments
Weapons, Main & Off-Hand	Enchant Weapon – Mark of the Thunderlord – Chance for +500 Crit for 6 seconds, your crits might increase the duration. Enchant Weapon – Mark of Shadowmoon – Sometimes increases Spirit by 500 for 6 seconds. Enchant Weapon – Mark of Warsong – Sometimes increase Haste by a large amount, but it then diminishes by 10% every 2 seconds Note: There is a “Glory of” version of each of these enchants which looks just the same as the above, so they are not included here. Mists: Enchant Weapon – Jade Spirit: Sometimes increases Int by 83, might increase Spirit by 750 if mana is low. Enchant Weapon – Windsong: Sometimes increase Crit, Haste, or Mastery by 75 for 12 seconds. Off Hand: Enchant Off-Hand – Major Intellect: +25 Int
Cloak	Enchant Cloak – Gift of Critical Strike – +100 Crit and +10% movement speed Enchant Cloak – Gift of Haste – +100 Haste and +10% movement speed Note: There is a “breath of” version of each of these enchants which have the same stats, but without the 10% movement bonus, and which is probably cheaper. Mists: Enchant Cloak – Superior Intellect: +15 Int
Rings	Enchant Ring – Gift of Critical Strike: +50 Crit Enchant Ring – Gift of Haste: +50 Haste Note: There is a “breath of” version of each of these enchants with +30 Stats, instead of +50.
Neck	Enchant Neck – Gift of Critical Strike: +75 Crit Enchant Neck – Gift of Haste: +75 Haste Note: There is a “breath of” version of the above enchant which provides +40 to the stats, instead of +75
Shoulders	Greater Crane Wing Inscription: +15 Int and 5 Crit
Chest	Enchant Chest – Glorious Stats: +9 to all Stats Enchant Chest – Mighty Spirit: +25 Spirit
Bracers	Enchant Bracer – Super Intellect: +15 Int Enchant Bracer – Mastery: +25 Mastery
Gloves	Enchant Gloves – Superior Mastery: +25 Mastery
Belt	Livingsteel Belt Buckle: Gem slot for a nice Int gem
Leggings	Greater Pearlescent Spellthread: +19 Int and +11 Spirit Greater Cerulean Spellthread: +19 Int and +11 Crit
Boots	Enchant Boots – Greater Precison: +12 Crit rating Enchant Boots – Pandaren’s Step: +10 Mastery, slight run speed increase. Enchant Boots – Greater Haste: +12 Haste

 

Professions for the Holy Paladin

Profession bonuses are all dead in Warlords. Get them for the gear or the gold. If you already have a ton of gold you can buy crafted ilevel 640 or so gear off the auction house, available for level 91s. This will give you a good start into your PvP game, until you can get the PvP gear.

Learning the crafts and making the gear yourself will take a lot of time and save you most of that ton of gold.

Engineering is probably the most useful profession, especially if you do world PvP.

Holy Professions
Tailoring	Nothing here for you.
Leatherworking	Nothing here, move along.
Jewelcrafting	Make nice gems, useful rings and neck items, and gemmed mounts.
Enchanting	Enchant those rings, necks, cloaks, and weapons.
Inscription	Glyphs, items for your caster buddies, darkmoon cards (to use to get starting trinkets,) and misc other stuff.
Alchemy	Mot much here, esp. since potions tend to be cheap on the Auction House.
Engineering	has lots of interesting toys, some of which have situational use. There’s a shield, a glider, a sweet little rocket, a cloaking device, Plasma Mechshades, and more.
Blacksmithing	Craft your own armor and weapons, though it might be easier to get them through PvP. .
Skinning	Just for the gold and leatherworking
Herbalism	just for grinding gold and for Alchemy and Inscription
Mining	just for he gold and Blacksmithing and Engineering.

 

Paladin Race choice:

Since the Paladin is such a versitile class it’s hard to say which race is “best.” It really depends on what your game is. Humans might arguably be “the best,” at least for PvP, with their escape ability allowing two DPS/Healing trinkets.

Pandarens cannot become Paladins.

Draenei: Int bonus

• Good with Jewelcrafting.
• Heal: This is a tiny heal compared to the others you already have, so isn’t as useful as it is for others. Still, it requires no mana and no Holy Power, and is an instant cast.
• Bonus to Int and Str (for those times when you’re playing Ret.)
• Resistant to Shadow Damage

Dwarf: Wash away effects & resist damage, better crits.

• Stone Form: Nice against bleeds and magical effects. Also comes with 10% damage reduction.
• 2% increased critical effect on your heals.
• Resistance to Frost: Yawn.
• Good with Archeology.

Human: Use two +Int trinkets, more Versatility

• May be the best Pally race for PvP.
• Increased Versatility
• Bonus to Rep gains: Nice if you intend to gain faction with any of the many factions in the game. In the long run this may save you many hours of faction grinding.
• Every Man for Himself (Escape:) Very nice for PvP. It means that you don’t have to carry the PvP escape trinket and can grab a more useful trinket, instead.

Blood Elf: Silence and +Crit.

• Good at Enchanting
• Arcane Torrent: Provides both an A of E silence, but casters probably won’t be in range. Also restores a small bit of mana.
• Resistant to magical damage: Of small use against magic throwing things in raids, not so much elsewhere.
• +1% to Crit.

Tauren: War Stomp, better Crits.

• Best Horde Pally race, and likely the best tanks of either faction, due to War Stomp and their increased health.
• War Stomp stuns nearby opponents – great for melee, not so much for healing, except that it will allow time to get away or get a cast off.
• Increased Health – Always useful, even if it doesn’t scale well at very high level. It’s still the equivalent of at least three Stam gems.
• Hebalism skill and speed increased – The heal obtained from herbalism also adds a big Haste cooldown, which is generally useful.
• Resistant to Nature damage
• 2% increased critical effect on your heals.
• Target of a wide variety of Man/Cow jokes.

 

Holy Paladin Macros

Possibly useful macros for the Holy Paladin

Bothered by pesky undead critter sent by that DK over there? This will help. Works best if only one of the things is attacking.

• #showtooltip Turn Evil
• /targetexact Ebon Gargoyle
• /cast Turn Evil
• /targetlasttarget

General macro targeting you or a party member. Great if you’re running arenas. Make one for yourself and another for each party member, where applicable. You’ll see several examples below.

The following macros and comments were grabbed from the WoW Forums.

“First off is targeting macros, instead of clicking your party frames you should use these, you’re going to become a better healer, better at line of sighting CC as you’re not looking at your party frames. Do this for all your arena partners and put them on a handy key I have my scroll for targeting(Scroll up and down).”

You can also use ‘arenaX’ as your target, X being the 1-5 of your opponents in the arena. Use ‘@arena1’ or ‘target=arena1’ etc. Use the name of your teammates for friendly macros.

Dispel Macros

I use the same keybind for dispelling my arena partners but together with a Shift modifer so I’m using Shift Scroll up / down for dispelling, you should have a macro to dispel yourself aswell.

• /cast [@partymember] Cleanse

Divine Protection

Simple macro to use Health stone as well as our mini Shield wall, I shouldn’t have this macro as you tend to use the DP for the sprint and not defensive, so if i’m not topped it’s going to use the HS :p

• #showtooltip
• /cast Divine Protection
• /use Healthstone

Hammer of Justice

Simple Focus Hammer macro.

• #showtooltip Hammer of Justice
• /cast [target=focus] Hammer of Justice

Blessing of Protection

Yep, I use 2 of these macros aswell as normal keybind to bop, you don’t have to but it comes in handy to BoP blinds etc.

• #showtooltip
• /cast [target=NAMEOFPARTYMEMBER] Hand of Protection

Freedom

I use 3 of these macros as well, what I do to keep them all in my head is put them on a keybind that I can remmeber, freedom for example is CTRL – 1,2, and 3.

• #showtoltip
• /cast [@NAMEOFPARTYMEMBER] Hand of Freedom

Holy Shock

Holy Shock macro for myself, just somethign I’m still using after 4 years.

• #showtooltip Holy Shock
• /cast [@Mírion] Holy Shock

Rebuke

Simple focus rebuke, can come in handy if you’re standing next to a Mage that just blinked in to sheep you.

• /cast [@Focus] Rebuke

Turn Evil

Last one now promise, mouseover to fear pets. Just mouse hover over the beastie and hit the macro. Bye bye beastie.

• /cast [target=mouseover] Turn Evil

See the second video on our “how to macro” page for making a “cast sequence” macro.

General Tips

Grabbed from the WoW Forums.

General game tips

• You should be using Crusader Strike to gain a Holy Power if you’re blanketed / locked on cast to get a quick WoG after. Only if there’s something close to you that you can hit, don’t run out in the open to do it.
• If you see a Hunter moving towards you you should use Hand of Sacrifice to possibly break the incoming trap, this is quite easy to predict once you learn it.
• If you’re being trained by a Rogue and need to get away you should use Hand of Freedom the last second of the stun so you can quickly use Speed of Light or Judgment (from Long Arm of the Law, if you took fearthe talent) to get away.
• You can fear (Turn Evil) the Warlock pets to prevent counter spells being cast on you.
• DK pets can all be feared, preferable you should fear the DK pet once it’s been transformed as it will do a lot of damage. (Only Unholy DKs will have pets.)
• If you ever have spare globals and you’re playing with casters, Cleanse poisons, diseases as well it does make a huge difference.
• Don’t forget to rebuff in combat as it does make a difference.
• Freedom is our best defensive ability against casters as well as melees, use it wisely as you now have 2.
• Always try and keep a reasonable distance to a pillar, you should always have a way to avoid CC either by outranging it or Line of Sighting it.

Communication

• NEVER ever blame a loss on the team, ask them what happened and went wrong and what to do better next game.
• ALWAYS call out exactly what you’re doing, every global should be called out, you should call out if you’re using a Sacrifice, freedom, bop, divine protection or can or can not cleanse.
• If you lose a game, don’t queue up before you’ve talked through what you’re going to do different next game, if you don’t you’ll probably lose the next game.
• As a healer it’s very important to know what your DPSers are calling out so you need to listen carefully, you need to know whenever a Rogue is stunned, so he can’t kick for example. If this is not working for your team you will not get far, you need to be able to trust your DPS to do what they say they’re doing.

Discussion of Holy Paladins in Warlords.

How to Heal as a Holy Pal (in Arena)

This video is not updated for Warlords (It’s for 5.4 Mists,) but there are some good tips on positioning, strategy, etc. Not just rotations, though those are in there, too.

 

 

How to Get your Paladin to the Level Cap, ASAP

Retribution Paladin leveling is easy. Holy and Protection have it a bit harder, just due to the utter lack of damage. So if you’re questing then switch to Ret, unless of course you’re leveling another class.

Any way you want to look at it, there are thousands of quests from to get to 100 and a bazillion mobs to kill (not to mention other players, but they don’t count here.) Sorting out which quests are best and which series of quests will get you to 100 the fastest is another game, which is why we highly recommend Zygor’s Guide.

Zygor’s is an in-game guide and it nearly automates the whole leveling process: you just pick your starting point, at any level, and the guide tracks which quest you’re on, tracks the quest objectives, and automatically advances and updates as you complete your tasks and quests. In addition, a waypoint arrow is set automatically, so you never have to wonder where to go. All of the important quest info is included in the guide so you never have to wonder what to do. You’ll find that it’s vastly superior to the in-game questing help.

Playing with Heirlooms and/or Recruit a friend? Gaining a few levels in the dungeons or in PvP? Zygor’s has your back. The guide knows what level you are and will correctly suggest where to go next and will let you dump all of your obsolete quests. You will probably never need to look at your quest log again.

Grab your copy here and get to 100 as fast as possible, or read our review, first.