WotLK Classic Holy Paladin Guide

Paladins are capable of filling all three roles in Wrath of the Lich King and are competitive at each. All of the specializations will allow you 3to fill a specific niche because of the plentiful buffs that no other class can offer.

Holy Paladins are the strongest single-target healer in the game and are essential to any raid's success, as they are primarily tank healers. Holy Paladin's biggest strength, other than their single-target healing, is their Mana efficiency. They also have a wide array of cooldowns that can come in handy if things do not go according to plan or that can be used preemptively to make a difficult part of an encounter considerably easier.

If you would like to see where Holy Paladins fall in the overall rankings among healer specs for both PvE and PvP in WotLK Classic, we have created pages dedicated to explaining what classes and specializations are the best of the best through multiple factors. However, ultimately, you should not let these lists dissuade you from playing what you enjoy.

Strengths

• Consistently powerful single-target healing with little set-up time.
• Scale extremely well with gear thanks to Holy Guidance.
• Strong buffs and utility such as Blessings, Auras, and wipe protection in Divine Intervention.

Weaknesses

• Ability to heal multiple targets is extremely limited due to only single-target, casted heals.
• Limited mobility makes movement challenging.
• Most powerful throughput cooldown Avenging Wrath limits usage of defensive cooldowns.

In WotLK Classic, Paladins are able to be both Alliance and Horde. Blood Elf is the only Horde race that can be Paladin, while the Alliance can choose between Draenei, Human, or Dwarf.

Blood Elf and Human are the strongest races for Holy Paladin on each respective faction. Blood Elves, due to the fact that they are the only choice as Horde, and Human due to their slightly higher Intelligence rating and the situational usefulness of Will to Survive.

Blood Elf is the default choice if you are playing Horde, as they are the only race that is able to be Paladin. Their racials are still quite good as Paladins are quite dependent on Mana, which Arcane Torrent helps with, as well as granting you additional magic resistances to bolster Paladin's weakness against spellcasters.

Dwarf is in a unique spot, as Stoneform can be a powerful defensive cooldown in a situation where you are unable to cast Cleanse or have a nasty bleed on you and are taking a lot of Physical damage. Unfortunately, Find Treasure and Gun Specialization are both completely useless for Paladins in any kind of combat situation.

Draenei offer a very situationally useful heal in Gift of the Naaru that, in an emergency, can save you or a party member. Heroic Presence is the most powerful racial though, as it allows you and people in your party to itemize completely differently because of the added Hit rating.

Perception is an extremely strong against any stealth class and can net you a massive advantage in PvP. The Human Spirit is not particularly useful in any combat situation. Both Mace and Sword Specialization are quite strong early on in lower gear levels and, even later on, might alter your gear choices while maintaining Expertise.

Engineering is extremely important for Paladin both for the personal HPS increases added from the Cloak and Glove enchants, but especially the insane amount of mobility that Nitro Boosts affixed to your boots will allow you. Engineering ends up being a slightly lower gain in stats than other crafting professions but the overall utility that the Profession has to offer makes it a must-have for almost every class, especially ones that struggle with mobility like Paladin.

Jewelcrafting is the single largest increase of stats of any of the crafting professions especially before the addition of Epic gems to the game. Intellect is the single strongest stat for a Holy Paladin and this is the largest possible gain of it.

Engineering and Jewelcrafting are both chosen based on their endgame benefits and do not offer any particularly beneficial gold farms.