The Holy Light :: Paladin Guide

Raiding as a Paladin
Approaching Molten Core or Zul'Gurub for the first time and feeling a bit indimitated by the process? I'll admit, it's daunting, and even sometimes unattractive as the legions of posters on the official forums can make a person feel under or overwhelmed with the supposed role of Paladins in raid situations. Hopefully this guide will help illuminate some of the things that Paladins can do on raids and what they bring besides being blessing bots. (Alliteration is so refreshing.)

Helpful Addons
CTRaid Assist
Mandatory raid addon, you must have this. I cannot stress just how useful this mod is. Monitor the entire raid as a heads up display, create sets for different raids, boss mods that alert you to certain abilities, built in cure functionality, heal cutoffs, it really is your best friend in a raid. Unless your guild uses their own solution for raiding, I highly suggest you get this (most guilds require it) and urge your guild to use it. Wonderful mod.

Castparty
This mod lets you cast spells with mouse clicks on the CTRaid member windows. Thanks to Dunarth of Relic for this, I absolutely love it. However, it can be a bit tricky if you're used to selecting folks with the CTRaid boxes. How I use this mod is I organize the raid by class, and line up all classes side by side in order of healing priority left to right. It's also helpful to use the MT/MA boxes in CTRA and extend them to show the MT's target's target, thus being able to quickly heal anyone that has gained agro.

Decursive
One-click Cleanse. Must have for raiding. As a Paladin, we have the best curative spell in the books - you will definately want this to make your life easier. Decursive can auto-target people in your raid that have a disease, magic or poison effect and cleanse them with a touch of a button. You can also define a priority list to ensure that key people are cleansed during certain fights.

BuffAhoy 1.9
Bless an entire raid with Greater Blessings with ease. Open the BuffAhoy control panel (set a key binding for it) and drag your Greater Blessings to each class. Set a hot key to process your buffing cycle and away you go! Just be mindful of when your buff senquence ends, so you don't start a new one and waste Symbols.

Whispercast
Required to buff a raid without going guana in 1.8. Greater Blessings in 1.9 will help, but this is still handy for 5-15 man groups. Have your fellow raiders set up a macro that whispers you the name of a blessing ("/w Jest Kings") and this will queue up spells in a first-in, first-out manner.

Raid Preparation Checklist
Before you go on a raid, you may want to double check this list to make sure you have what you need before entering an instance. In most cases, raids will not wait for you to hearth and run back to an instance, or may not let people abuse their warlock's summoning abilities. Assume that once you're in the instance, you're there until the end.

Paladin Raid Checklist
	Symbol of Divinity Bring 5-10	Used for casting Divine Intervention (see below). You will at most need 5 to 10 of these symbols, and depending on the number of Warlocks you have, you may not use these at all. But bring them anyway.

	Symbol of Kings Bring 200	Used for Greater Blessings of Might, Wisdom, Light, Kings, Salvation and Sanctuary. These Greater versions of blessings will buff all members of the same class as your target in the raid for 15 minutes.

	Major Mana and Health Potions Bring 5-10	Both are incredibly handy when mana is tight - while you want to space your casting a little to let spirit/wisdom/mana regen regain some mana, sometimes you need mana now.

	Demonic Runes	Converts health into mana. Not required, but helpful. I would actually advise against this unless you're not going to be taking damage AND your other healers know that you're doing this instead of taking damage.

	Runecloth Bandages Bring 20-40	300 First Aid is incredibly handy to have and not hard to work up while leveling (or at 60, just farm Stockades and SM for the cloth you need).

	Repair	Absolutely repair your armor to 100% before entering any instance.

As with everything in a raid, you guild may have different needs. Engineers (a common profession for Paladins) may be asked to make repair bots, you may be asked to bring mats, or even bring items like Aqual Quintessence. Check with your raid leaders if you're unsure what you should bring.

Paladin Strategies: Cleansing
So, I won't lie to you. Paladins cleanse a lot in big raids. If this pisses you off, if you feel like you're unable to install decursive and use it during boss fights, then please stop reading this page now. I'm sorry if this is harsh, but in places like Molten Core, teamwork is key, and in 1.9, Paladins have the cheapest Cleanse ability in terms of raw mana. This makes Cleanse an incredibly important ability to stay on top of, especially during boss fights.

Using Decursive is probably all you need to know for Cleansing, but you need to also know how to prioritize your cleansing. Some fights require that the tank is Cleansed first, some times not at all. An example; Lucifron's Curse of Doom is a magic debuff that does 2000 damage after 10 seconds. Keeping your tank up is vital in this fight, so he should be top priority (next to you, see below). Next are your druids and then the rest of the raid. You should always be top priority on your own decursive, this insures that nobody else need put you on their decurisve list. In this way, you need not put Paladins and Priests on your list if you are cleansing Magic or Disease, and you can exclude Paladins and Druids if you are cleansing poison.

With the recent patch, Cleanse has had its cost increased, to 120 mana (a % of your base mana, this number is for level 60), so you need to be a bit more selective about which debuffs are cleansed.

Paladin Strategies: Healing
The boss fights in 20-40 man raids are very long and straining on mana, much different from any fight you've previously seen. Baron, General, Darkmaster, Ogre King, these are all designed around very short fights where mana regeneration is not as much of a priority. In 20-40 man raids, however, mana efficiency and conservation is priority number one. The good news is that no class is more efficient in their healing than paladins.

Healing in a raid as a Paladin is a little different from any other class. Our heals are smaller for the most part than Priests and Druids, and in any raid, you hopefully have enough of either class to cover trash mob fighting. This is not always the case, however, so be prepared to fill as a healer. If your raid asks you to be a primary healer, don't whine - you're fufilling one of the roles designed for the class. Healers are often rare. Paladins are everywhere these days.

Who you heal is dependant on your raid's strategy. We can be excellent devoted healers, on several fights Paladins can claim one of the top spots chain healing a targeted warrior as we can often produce the most healing per mana with Blessing of Light. Other times, you will be called on to spot heal classes that recieve area effect damage and may not be a primary target of a priest or druid that is trying to keep the main tank healed. Rogues, off-tank DPS warriors and other Paladins are often in need of the most spot healing if the boss does damage up front. Some bosses have volleys and other ranged attacks that can weaken your ranged DPS or your other healers.

When in doubt, use this a starting point on who to heal. This table is by no means an end-all-be-all to who you should and should not heal, but rather a basic run down of healing priorities based on role. Many raids have healing assignments or their own priorities, so please listen to your raid leaders.

Paladin Healing Priorities on Raids, a Basic View
Warriors	Warriors are often the backbone of the raid and should be kept up at all costs. If you have enough warriors that some are only doing DPS, then you can treat them as if they were rogues, however, they have no ability to lessen their agro like Rogues.

Priests	Priests are often your primary healers and as such need to be kept up - a dead healer helps nobody. Having a healer die with mana to spend is devasting in boss fights.

Druids	Druids are much the same as priests, however a bit more durable. A dead druid heals nobody, so keep an eye out.

Mages	Mages often provide one of the most useful tasks during fights, decursing, on top of their large DPS. This is often a vital role in the success of a raid, keeping them up is often key as they are fragile like priests.

Warlocks	Warlocks tend to be a bit more sturdy than mages in the health department, and often a Warlock may be life tapping for mana, making healing a slight bit less of a priority. However, Warlocks may also be responsible for banishing (especially in MC) as well, so keep an eye on them.

Rogues	Rogues unfortunately tend to be at the low end of the priority list for healing. While they need to be up to do DPS, Rogues have to manage their own agro and be able to vanish or sprint away from the fight and bandage.

Hunters	Hunters often serve the same singular role in raids as Rogues, DPS. However, hunters tend to be away from the action for the most part, and the damage they take may not be urgent enough to directly heal. Usually a rejuv or a renew is good enough to heal them, and they can bandage easily due to their range.

Paladins	Its VERY rare that you will ever need to heal another Paladin. There are exceptions of course, if you have a Pally that's tanking a Core Hound or something, but for the most part, a Paladin should be more than capable to take care of themselves.

Blessing of Light
Not enough can be said for this insanely great blessing. This small mana expentiture at the start of the fight can result in outstanding levels of healing on a designated target. Blessing of Light adds 400 health to your highest ranks of Holy Light and 125 to your highest ranks of Flash. This is not like +healing gear where you gain a fraction of the listed amount, this blessing will tack on the listed amount - for your highest ranks. I have heard different numbers and ranks so many times, that I really need to test this all again, but as a guideline, Holy Light Rank 5 will get the full benefit from Blessing of Light, making it your most efficient (albeit a bit slow) heal. I suggest that you practice your healing with and without any +healing gear you might have. Figure your biggest heal, your most efficient heal, and your fast healing should all have a spot on your hot bar.

+healing Items
"Equip: Increases healing done by spells and effects by up to X." You've seen this mod on items, I'm sure. This number represents the amount of additional health your healing spells will do if they were cast at a 3.5 second speed. What this means is that for Holy Light, you're gaining roughly 70% of the listed bonus tacked on to how much it heals, and with Flash of Light, around 35%. Doesn't sound like much, does it? Well no. But when you have 8 items on that all give between 10 and 50 +healing, you're looking about 100-300 more health per cast, or, if you're spamming Holy Light, about a 120 more HPS. This is significant.

Potion Consumption
Some wise advice from Dunarth of Relic: While in a boss fight, it is always better to down a mana potion BEFORE you are empty. Usually, you hit 50%, down a potion, so that when you eventually do run out, your potion timer will almost be up and you can use another one. Another very useful consumable is Demonic runes, since they are on a separate timer than potions. Safe to use when you are at full life, and then just bandage yourself if needed.

Stay at Maximum Range for Healing
In some fights, bosses will have AoE attacks (area of effect), which have a maximum range. You will have to learn to gauge the range of your heals in order to stay out of these attacks if you are not meleeing. A great example of this would be the Spider fight in Zul'Gurub.

Stay Mobile
You will have to learn to stay mobile during battles, some fights will require you to move around to dodge attacks (Bat bombs in ZG, Magmadar flames in MC) and yet still be able to heal. This is tricky but with experience it gets easier to stay in healing range and still move around. This is difficult as a Paladin since we have no instant cast healing spells (outside of the inefficient and small Holy Shock in 1.9), but Cleanse and Blessing of Protection can still be used on the run. However, as a Paladin, you may be able to shrug off physical attacks.

Paladin Strategies: Judgment of Wisdom
Most boss fights are very mana intensive, and Paladins have the unique ability on the Alliance side of offering unparalleled mana regeneration to all raiders at once with Blessing and Judgment of Wisdom. At this point in your career, I should not have to explain the blessing to you. Needless to say, it is one of the best blessings we have and we'll leave it at that. However, Judgment of Wisdom has a few uses you may or may not be aware of if you have never raided.

Judgment of Wisdom gives a % chance to return 59 mana to anyone attacking or casting spells on the judged target. This applies to ALL attacks and spells, meaning melee, direct damage spells, channeled DOTs, auto-shoot, auto-wand and weapon procs. It WILL restore mana to a druid in feral form. Over the 30 seconds it lasts (more on 1.9 later), it can potentially restore thousands of points of mana to a raid. Simply put, it is bar none the best Judgment one could have on a target. Judgment of Wisdom lasts 30 seconds and can be reapplied every 15 in 1.8.

Cloth casters can use wands to restore their mana and should whenever possible. Hunters will automatically gain this regeneration by using auto-shoot. Druids and Paladins however, have to melee for the mana regen. (I suppose Druids could spam Rank 1 Wrath?)

In 1.9, however, new strategies come to light. Judgments are refreshed by melee attacks of the Paladin that made the Judgment, meaning there can be infinite judgment of wisdom if you have a Paladin constantly in melee. If this is not prefered by your guild, there is a talent in the new Holy tree that will extend Judgments of Wisdom and Light by 30 seconds to a total of 40 seconds. I leave it to you and your guild to work out strategies for Judgment refreshment and Paladin melee during boss fights. However, there are some fights where you want only one person in melee range (Shazzrah and Baron Geddon come to mind) - this is a case for at least one Holy Paladin in your raiding group to take Lasting Judgment.

Paladin Strategies: Raid Tanking
I'm sure I'll lose a lot of credibility for this, but YES, Paladins can off-tank in 20-40 man situations. However, there are a few caveats to this, and the largest is itemization. While Dire Maul/Scholo/UBRS/Strath drops are certainly worthy for first timers tanking Molten Core, the lack of +Defense on Lawbringer means that you're going to have a harder time finding drops to help tank. Might is made for tanking, giving Warriors a significant advantage here. However, if you're willing to do the research, get the items needed, and if your guild can spare a healer being a tank (as they would still need to for Druids), you can off-tank just fine with the skills given to you.

The basics of off tanking as a Paladin are simple. Slap on a shield, your best defensive gear and stamina, get a fast weapon (I personally love Silent Fang for tanking, easy to get, a Hanzo would do too), and get busy with Seal of Fury and Holy Shield. In 1.9, this changes, and I would imagine that you're going to want to use Blessing of Sanctuary, Seal of Righteousness, Judgments of either Crusader or Wisdom, and spam as much holy damage as you can.

In Molten Core, Paladins can easily off tank Core Hounds if you're short a 5th warrior, giants hit incredibly hard, but are doable, Firelords and the such if you have good fire resistance. In ZG, there is absolutely no reason not to use a Paladin to off tank the blood drinkers or other trolls (though the priests can be tough without Fear Ward).

Paladin Strategies: Molten Core
Provided for your browsing, here is a basic run down of the 8 boss fights during Molten Core and strategies for the trash mobs you will encounter. Expect additions to this area as well as I learn more.

Paladin Strategies for Molten Core Fights
Lucifron	On Lucifron, clearing off his magic debuff can really help your raid. Impending Doom does 2000 damage after 10 seconds, so you can easily cure the entire raid of it with a few Paladins and Priests. Other than that, if you're assigned to your main tank, make sure to keep him up, otherwise, spot heal as needed and melee inbetween cleansing. The Flamewalker's mind control cannot be cured by Paladins, so don't bother trying. If a MC'd person is doing damage, stun/repent them and let a priest cure it. Shadow resistance is helpful here.

Magmadar	Mag requires quite a bit of healing on the main tank, so you might be put there. I often am. Other Paladins are usually place in the rear with the rogues and DPS warriors to help keep them up as needed. You can dispell the fear as well, so keep an eye on that. One Paladin can be kept out of combat to rez folks that get unlucky with the fire globs. If you want, Paladins are a good choice to pull Mag to your tank, just run up, DS and walk the nice doggie on up. Fire resistance aura is helpful, as with most bosses.

Gehennas	Gehennas is actually a lot of like Mag when you're actually fighting her. Heal if you're assigned to, spot when needed, and you don't have to cure anything. We usually keep one Paladin near the tank to help with healing and for resists, but sometimes you have to dart in and out of rain of fire. (She just happens to love me, I guess she likes Jest.) Pretty basic, just mind her curse when healing, don't waste your mana healing yourself if a mage/druid hasn't cleansed you. Gehennas can be pally pulled for easier positioning for your hunters to peel off the adds while the tank gets agro.

Garr	Garr is all about the pull. Again, we have a Pally pull Garr out right out of agro range for the 'locks to start banishing and the warriors to get their specific targets. Once the pull is made, you'll again either be assigned a tank/warlock to heal, or you can spot heal and melee as needed. It's helpful to add your tanks, rogues and yourself to your decurse list to clear shakles as your team gets away from exploding adds. Otherwise, melee away or heal, whatever needs to be done.

Baron Geddon	Geddon, like Shazzrah, can be a frustrating fight at times. Cleansing is the name of the game though, you HAVE to get ignite mana off your healers. We often have two Paladins out of combat rezzing folks that get blown up, and one paladin just inside aura range healing the tank. If you can dart in and get Judgment of Wisdom on him inbetween infernos, go for it. Divine Shield can remove the bomb, by the way. Fire Resistance aura isn't going to save anyone's life, but it helps.

Shazzrah	Oh Shazzrah. If you like to complain about not being able to melee, think about how Rogues must feel during this fight. It's a pretty easy fight, just annoying, really. As a Paladin, don't spam heals, use them in small bursts to avoid getting counterspelled by Shazz. Improved Concentration Aura should help a bit here as well. Know who your local mages and healers are and keep them up. If Shazzrah warps to you, run towards the tank, not towards another group. Divine Shield can help a lot here when you'd rather heal than run.

Sulfuron	Cleanse and decursive are your friend if you're up in the fray against the priests. Fire resistance can help since your priests can shadow resist. Help burn down the priests if you're not healing, once one or two are down, you'll have some spare healers to help with spot healing, so keep on decursive and do what needs to be done. Positioning is key with this fight, I've found, as is the pull. Paladins are good pullers again here, giving everyone time to shoot and pull the adds off the tank without him getting gang raped.

Golemagg	Pretty much the most straight forward fight in the place. Keep JoWisdom up if not Light as well, healing and mana are stressed to the max here, but there is really not a whole lot to this fight besides tanking and healing. Healing really is more of a priority here due to the length of the fight when you first do it.

CTRaid Assist (Images and Text Courtesy of Dunarth)
CTRaid assist is a great mod developed for raiding in WoW. I would say this tool is mandatory for all raiders. I will go into detail of configuring it with the most common options needed.

Class Sorting
It's always easier to configure CTRaid to display classes rather than groups. It makes it easier to sort out healing priorities. If you need to buff groups, just use the standard WoW raid window to select groups.

Overhealing Cutoff
What is overhealing? If a tank needs 500 hp to be full, and you heal him for 1000 hp, you have just overhealed for 500 hp. Why is this important? Mana conservation. Some raids fights (MC and ZG) are very long, and you will have to stretch out your mana pool for these battles. Also, many other healers will be spot healing so there are greater chances of overlapping.

For this, CTRaid is your friend. You can set a healing cutoff for Flash of Light and Holy Light (CTRaid adjusts itself according to your class and selects your healing spells - the screenshots are taken by a priest, so adjust for your own healing numbers.)
Ex: for flash heal, if the tank is missing 900 hp, CTRaid will interrupt the heal in the last .5 seconds.

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