TBC Classic Holy Paladin Guide

As Alliance you can choose to be one of three races as a Paladin: Draenei, Dwarf, or Human. Each Alliance race provides minimal benefit for your Holy Paladin so ultimately the race you choose will depend entirely on your preference. Draenei is my personal recommendation to give your party Heroic Presence allowing them to focus on gearing for stats other than Hit rating.

Draenei is still a good option for your Holy Paladin thanks largely to Heroic Presence. While the Hit rating will have minimal benefit for you as a Healer it will allow people in your party to focus on gearing for other stats. This is only really viable if you are in a guild and consistently playing with the same players but as mentioned previously there is no true increase to your healing with any of the Alliance races. Having Gift of the Naaru as an extra heal-over-time can be situationally useful but the majority of your time will be spent filling peoples health bars as quickly as possible so you may struggle to benefit from the delayed healing.

• Shadow Resistance increases your Shadow Resistance by 10.
• Heroic Presence increases chance to hit by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards.
• Gift of the Naaru applies a heal-over-time effect to a target healing them over the course of 15 seconds.
• Gemcutting increases your Jewelcrafting skill by 5.

Dwarf is a great choice if you find yourself doing content where you may be taking a hit or two. Stoneform increases your Armor by 10% and allows you to remove Poison, Bleed and Disease effects. While the Poison and Diseases can already be removed with your Cleanse ability being able to remove bleeds can sometimes be the difference between surviving or not.

• Find Treasure allows you to sense nearby treasure, making it appear on the minimap. Lasts until canceled.
• Frost Resistance increases your frost resistance by 10.
• Stoneform removes any active and grants immunity to Bleed, Disease, and Poison effects for 8 seconds while also increasing your Armor value by 10% on a 3-minute cooldown.

Human is another strong option for your Holy Paladin. While the majority of your mana regeneration as a Holy Paladin will come from Illumination you may situationally be able to benefit from the added Spirit from The Human Spirit. If you are interested in PvP it also offers Perception which greatly increases your ability to see stealthed targets which may allow you to keep yourself or an ally alive in a situation you may otherwise not have been able to.

• Diplomacy increases your reputation gains by 10%.
• Sword Specialization increases your Expertise with one and two-handed swords by 5.
• Mace Specialization increases your Expertise with one and two-handed maces by 5.
• The Human Spirit increases your Spirit by 10%.
• Perception dramatically increases your stealth detection for 20 seconds on a 3-minute cooldown.

With the addition of Blood Elves in The Burning Crusade Horde can now also be Paladin. Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent provide some great tools to help regenerate mana but due to the nature of most encounters its unlikely you will be able to consistently use Mana Tap. Arcane Torrent is often better used to interrupt/silence enemy spell casters to avoid the incoming damage all together.

• Mana Tap steals Mana from your current target, applying a buff that will stack up to 3 times. Using Arcane Torrent will consume these buffs and grant Mana based off your current amount of stacks.
• Arcane Torrent silences all enemies within 8 yards and consumes any Mana Tap stacks returning mana based off of your Mana Tap stacks.
• Magic Resistance increases your resistance to all types of Magic by 5.
• Arcane Affinity increases your Enchanting skill by 10.