TBC Classic Holy Paladin Guide

Paladins are capable of filling all three roles in TBC and are competitive at each. All of the specializations will allow you to 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 Paladins' biggest strength, other than their single-target healing, is their Mana efficiency. Their heals are so powerful that it is quite common to downrank your spells as a Holy Paladin, in order to continuously output healing. 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 pre-emptively 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 TBC 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.

In TBC Classic, Paladins are now able to be both Alliance and Horde! BloodElf is the only Horde race that can be Paladin, while the Alliance can choose between Draenei, Human, or Dwarf.

Both the new Burning Crusade Races BloodElf and Draenei are the strongest races for Holy Paladin PvE on each respective faction. Blood Elves, due to the fact that they are the only choice as Horde, and Draenei, due to how powerful the hit rating you grant to your party is. While you do not personally benefit from hit as a healer, many people itemize with having a Draenei in the party in mind, and the more Draenei the better in that situation.

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

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. Please note that Heroic Presence is strictly beneficial for physical DPS, whereas Inspiring Presence grants Spell hit. Draenei Paladins add the most to groups with their powerful buff and healing racials.

Perception is an extremely strong cooldown 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.

Leatherworking is an extremely powerful profession in TBC because of Drums of Battle and Greater Drums of Battle. No other profession offers even close to this level of benefit for a raid group, even with the debuff it now incurs, so having at least one person as LW in each group is huge. The added cast speed is useful for Paladins, but rarely used in a situation where max HPS is required and moreso just for DPS.

Tailoring is quite strong for Healers because of the extremely powerful crafted gear that is heavily gated by cooldowns early on and requires the Tailoring skill to equip.

Tailoring and Leatherworking are both chosen based on their end-game benefits and do not offer any particularly beneficial gold farms.

If you would like to learn more about how your profession of choice can be used to supplement your goldmaking, along with a variety of other means to bolster your income, see our full goldmaking guide linked below: