Holy Paladin PvP Guide for TBC Classic

Holy Paladin is one of the strongest single-target healing classes in the game and their burst healing potential in PvP is unmatched. In addition to their strong healing output they offer some of the best spells in the game to mitigate damage and buff allies.

The talent build listed above is a Holy-Protection hybrid that takes all of the major healing bonuses and abilities from Holy, such as Holy Shock and Divine Favor, while enhancing the abilities that are baseline for Paladin. There are some points here that can be moved around for your personal preference; the points spent in Improved Concentration Aura can easily be swapped into Stoicism if you are more worried about stuns than interrupts but please note that Holy Paladin is extremely susceptible to being interrupted.

As a Holy Paladin in PvP your main focus will be on keeping your allies alive and mobile so they can deal damage. While the healing toolkit for Holy Paladin is fairly small, each of your three main heals are quite potent and utilizing them correctly offers some of the strongest single-target healing in the game. Holy Paladins are extremely susceptible to crowd-controlling effects and interrupts due to their very limited mobility and dependence on casting, so it is important to constantly be positioning yourself in a way that you can reach your allies but are at a distance from your foes.

Holy Shock is an instant-cast heal that does a massive burst of healing. Holy Shock will be a significant portion of your healing and you will likely be using it nearly on cooldown in PvP. It is important to note that it can be quite costly so in lower periods of damage using one of your other two heals may be more cost-effective.

Holy Light is a massive, but slow single-target heal. Holy Light does a ton of healing but the cast for this, even with Light's Grace maxed out, is quite long, leaving you very vulnerable to being interrupted. It is important to keep track of your enemies' positioning and interrupts so you can best understand what heal to be casting. In a situation where you are confident you will not be interrupted this is by far the most effective heal both in regard to Mana spent and healing output.

Flash of Light is a quick, inexpensive heal that does a small amount of healing. Flash of Light is your spammable heal that you will likely be casting the most out of your three major healing abilities. Using Flash of Light can leave you vulnerable to being interrupted, but thanks to its quick cast speed you can easily weave this in even if your enemy has an interrupt available.

Paladin offers some of the best utility in the game, and taking full advantage of your utility is what really separates a good Paladin from a great one. When used correctly, Paladin has a response to almost every situation you could think of.

Blessing of Freedom is a great tool to keep you or your allies mobile, removing all root and slow effects from whomever you cast it on. This is, however, a Magic effect and able to be dispelled or spell-stolen, so you cannot always depend on it.

Divine Shield is a complete immunity that clears most debuffs from you. Using this can save your life or keep you offensive in a situation where you are constantly being crowd-controlled. This effect can be dispelled by Priests casting Mass Dispel so it is important to keep this in mind when playing against a Priest.

Cleanse is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, dispels in the game. Removing one Magic, Poison, and Disease effect from your ally in PvP is a massive advantage. Make sure you have this in a place you can easily use it, as dispelling a crowd-controlling effect off your teammates could turn the tide of any fight.

Blessing of Protection protects you or an ally with a shield that grants immunity to all Physical damage and Physical effects. This can be used to both stop damage or remove stuns such as Kidney Shot. Keep in mind that this is a Magic effect and can be dispelled or spell-stolen. If you are fighting against a Mage it is a good idea to be ready to cancel the buff off of yourself or you risk the Mage potentially stealing the shield.

Divine Favor guarantees a critical strike on your next healing ability. This cooldown is best used in a situation where you need a lot of healing quickly. In a situation where your ally is moments from dying, pairing this with Holy Shock can quickly return them to a safe amount of health. When the enemy has already used all of their interrupts you can use it with Holy Light to top off your ally's health bar to keep you on the offensive.

Hammer of Justice is a short-range stun that can be used as a pseudo-interrupt if needed. Hammer of Justice is both great in an offensive situation where you might need to shut down a spell or heal cast or in a defensive one where you need to create distance or give yourself time to heal.

Turn Evil allows you to fear Undead or Demons. This is only particularly useful against Warlocks but oftentimes crowd-controlling their pet can have a major impact on the fight as their demons will not be able to use their abilities while feared.

Righteous Fury reduces your damage taken by a flat 6% when the buff is active, assuming you are talented into the improved version in the Protection tree.

Consecration can be used to try and pull stealthed enemies out of hiding, but it costs a lot of Mana so using Rank 1 is recommended for this. It is not viable to use Consecration for damage due to the fact it is entirely stationary and the Mana cost adds up very quickly.

Hammer of Wrath is your execute and deals massive damage to targets below 20% health. If you are able to cast Hammer of Wrath you probably should.

As a Holy Paladin, Concentration Aura will be your go-to as it reduces the spell pushback effects and even the duration of actual silences if you were to get interrupted thanks to the Improved Concentration Aura talent.

As a Holy Paladin your largest focuses gearing- and enchant-wise will be Resilience, Stamina, and Bonus Healing. As Holy Paladins have extremely strong heals baseline, this means they typically have to cast less spells than other healers to maintain their allies' health and, due to their susceptibility to interrupts and crowd controlling effects, a large emphasis is put on making those heals as strong as possible.

Resilience is the largest source of damage mitigation you can get from stats. Resilience is a flat damage reduction from all sources and getting as much of this as possible especially early on can help you in most PvP situations. Holy Paladin heals do a lot of healing baseline so putting an emphasis on this stat is important.

Healing Power is your most important throughput stat as a Holy Paladin. The more Bonus Healing you have, the stronger your healing abilities will be. This both helps with healing larger amounts of damage faster and leaves you less vulnerable to interrupts and crowd-controlling effects.

Stamina increases your healthpool and especially early on there are times where the raw health added by certain pieces can make a major difference in your survivability.

Intellect increases the size of your Mana pool, increases your spell Crit Chance, and, thanks to the talent Holy Guidance, grants Spell Damage and healing by 35% of your total Intellect. Intellect is an extremely powerful stat for Holy Paladins, and fortunately you will not often have to choose between Intellect and the other stats listed here as it is a Primary stat.

Spell critical hits heal for 150% of what a normal cast would. The more Spell Crit rating you have, the more likely this is to occur, so this is basically free healing.

Spell Haste makes your spell casts faster, allowing you to do more healing in a shorter time span. The quicker cast speed can be extremely beneficial in high-damage situations and will help you avoid interrupts.

The list linked below includes the best possible gear setup for a Holy Paladin in PvP and more details on the stat priority.

When it comes to evaluating Holy Paladin's 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.