Holy Paladin PvP Guide for Cataclysm Classic

Holy Paladin is a very strong healer with not many casted spells, making it much easier to get healing out during difficult windows. It als offers high utility and damage, making it a very strong pick in any form of PvP content.

Strengths

• Extremely powerful utility in the form of Hand of Protection and Hand of Freedom.
• Large amount of healing comes from instant casts ( Word of Glory and Holy Shock), making it easy to top players health without being interrupted.
• Powerful defensives thanks to Divine Shield and Divine Protection.
• High synergy with melee comps, helping to cover their weaknesses thanks to Hand of Freedom and Hand of Sacrifice.
• Multiple throughput cooldowns to deal with dangerous situations.

Weaknesses

• Low mobility when Divine Protection is on cooldown.
• Does not offer as much damage as other healers without consuming high amounts of mana.
• Mana costs become intensive when forced into using spells such as Flash of Light.

• Glyph of Holy Shock — Holy Shock is one of your strongest ways to heal. Being one of your most cast abilities, extra critical strike chance can add up a lot.
• Glyph of Word of Glory — Word of Glory similarly will be cast frequently, making extra healing from it incredibly valuable.
• Glyph of Seal of Insight — Provides a significant healing boost, making it mandatory in nearly every situation.

• Glyph of Hammer of Justice — Extra range makes casting Hammer of Justice much easier.
• Glyph of Turn Evil — Causes your Turn Evil to have no cast time, removing the difficulty that would typically come with trying to cast it.
• Glyph of Cleansing — Allows you to get extra casts of Cleanse off without being as concerned about your mana.

• Glyph of Blessing of Might, Glyph of Blessing of Kings, Glyph of Insight — All fairly unimpactful, but minor glyphs lack competitive options.

If you have not already, we recommend reading the Spells Summary Page first. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this section. In PvP you will need to react and adapt to different situations, meaning you will not always follow the recommended rotation below. Aim to do whatever allows you to stick on your target the most while dealing as much damage as possible.

1. Maintain Beacon of Light on a target at all times.
2. Cast Judgement every 60 seconds to maintain the Judgements of the Pure buff.
3. Holy Shock — Cast as much as possible for efficient healing, extra Holy Power, and no risk of being interrupted.
4. Spend Holy Power on Word of Glory.
5. Generate Holy Power through Crusader Strike when casting is not possible.
6. Cast appropriate filler spell or deal damage.

The best filler spell will largely come down to Divine Light, Holy Light, or Flash of Light. You can read about these spells in the section below. While Holy Radiance is extremely powerful, it has a very high mana cost meaning that you should avoid casting it in many situations. When you have a lot of targets needing healing it can be a viable choice.

Holy Paladin has three core heals outside of Holy Shock and Word of Glory that you will need to decide between: Divine Light, Holy Light, and Flash of Light. Each spell offers different types of healing with different cast times and different mana costs.

1. Divine Light — Offers you a very large amount of healing but comes with a slow cast time and very high mana cost.
2. Holy Light — Has the lowest mana cost of your three filler spells, but offers the least healing on a moderate cast time.
3. Flash of Light — Has the quickest cast time but has a very high mana cost and offers less healing than Divine Light.

In order to succeed in PvP, you will need to balance keeping your party alive while also sustaining your mana. Casting significant amounts of Divine Light and Flash of Light will cause you to run out of mana very quickly and thus shouldn't be spammed. That being said, Holy Light offers very little healing and shouldn't be relied upon to heal very heavy incoming damage. You will need to choose the best spell to cast based on your mana levels, incoming damage, and overall depends on the situation you are in. Each spell will likely be cast at some point in a PvP setting.

Holy Paladins has a number of personal cooldowns, mostly focused on increasing your Healing or Survivability.

• Avenging Wrath — 2-minute cooldown. Increases both your healing and damage for 20 seconds. With a fairly short CD and long duration, you will want to make sure you are making frequent use of this cooldown.
• Divine Favor — 3-minute cooldown. While it has a long duration, it also has a longer cooldown meaning that you will need to use it carefully since you won't be able to use it often. That being said, extra casting speed and critical strike chance can be very useful.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings — 5-minute cooldown. While it may have a long cooldown, it also has a long duration but goes away after 5 heals. You should aim to use this when you have a player in sigificant danger and need a little extra healing to help keep them alive. With a long cooldown you will need to use it carefully.
• Aura Mastery — 2-minute cooldown. Not overly impactful, but increases the effect of your selected Aura.
• Divine Protection — 30-second cooldown. Reduces the damage taken for 10 second, with such high up time you should be aiming to use it as often as possible.
• Divine Shield — 5-minute cooldown. Makes you immune to damage. With such a long cooldown you will need to use this very cautiously and for emergency situations only.

In addition to your main spells and cooldowns, you also have many utility spells that can be game-changing when used in the proper scenario. Make sure you understand each of the spells listed below to fully take advantage of your entire spellbook.

• Hand of Protection — Causes a player to become immune to physical damage but during the duration they also cannot use physical spells. This should be used primarily on caster DPS and those who do not deal physical damage. In situations where a player might die, you can choose to use this on any player just keep in mind the fact it may stop their damage entirely.
• Hand of Sacrifice — Transfers 30% of the damage that a player takes to you. This can massively help reduce the likelihood of a player dying, but it adding extra damage onto yourself can be scary. You should aim to use this with Divine Protection active or during dire situations.
• Hand of Freedom — Causes a friendly player to become immune to movement impairing effects for the duration. Generally very useful when a player is slowed.
• Turn Evil — Fears an enemy, providing you with a decent form of crowd control.
• Hammer of Justice — Stuns an enemy; is your strongest form of crowd control.
• Lay on Hands — Heals a player for your maximum health. Should be used in emergency situations only due to the very long cooldown.

If you are looking to maximize the potential of your Holy [Paladin] in Cataclysm PvP, these are the recommended professions:

1. Blacksmithing — Gives you 2 additional sockets with Socket Bracer and Socket Gloves, giving you even more Resilience.
2. Jewelcrafting — Gives you 3 powerful gems, Mystic Chimera's Eye, giving you a large Resilience boost.

The list linked below includes the best possible gear setup for an Paladin in PvP.

When it comes to evaluating Holy Paladin place within the Arena, we have created a number of guides devoted to listing a variety of popular team compositions which you can find below.