TBC Classic Holy Paladin Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

If you have not already, please read the spells summary page. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this page.

Holy Paladins do not have a set 'rotation' of abilities to do optimal healing, but rather focus on making sure you are using the correct spell and rank to minimize overhealing, while maximizing your throughput. In TBC Classic, Paladins are given a new healing spell, Holy Shock, but the vast majority of the healing will be done with Holy Light and Flash of Light.

This guide assumes you are using the talent build that can be found on our talents page and are playing a max-level character. If you are looking for leveling-based help, please refer to the >leveling page for a leveling-specific rotation.

• Flash of Light is the spell you will cast the most. Paladin rarely has to stop casting when using efficient ranks of spells and most of your casts should be either Rank 6 or Rank 7, depending on what your gear allows and the damage output occurring. Due to a lack of an AoE or multi-target healing spell, Flash of Light is very useful for spot-healing, thanks to its quick cast.
• Holy Light is your largest, most powerful heal, but it can drain your Mana quickly. Casting Holy Light will grant you the Light's Grace buff, which makes the cast considerably faster. It is best to use a lower rank of Holy Light to maintain this buff and Rank 5 is typically your best option to keep the Light's Grace buff up; in a situation where you are casting Holy Light, it is typically a high damage period, so you will either be casting the max rank of this spell to heal that damage or Rank 5 to keep the buff up. Lower ranks should never be used to do anything but maintain the buff, as Flash of Light is better in almost every situation except when maximum HPS is required.
• Holy Shock is a very expensive instant cast heal that should only be used in emergencies where you believe your target will die if they are not immediately healed or during movement where you are not able to stop and cast either Holy Light or Flash of Light.

The seal you are judging has minimal impact on your 'rotation' as a Holy Paladin, but each unique seal can offer benefits. As a Holy Paladin, you will typically be judging either Light or Wisdom and, if you are playing with a Ret Paladin, you will not have to worry about refreshing your Judgment. If you are not, it is important to make sure you are trying to maximize your seal uptime by casting Judgment to refresh your respective debuff.

Your Blessings are incredibly powerful buffs that should be kept up at all times. You will want to coordinate with the other Paladins in your raid to see who should be buffing what on each class, since you can only use one on any given person at a time. With the Greater Blessings, they will last 30 minutes, so you generally will not need to worry about refreshing them in the middle of a fight, but you will want to check between pulls to make sure none are in danger of falling off.

Paladins have some of the strongest cooldowns and utility in the game and taking full advantage of them is important and can sometimes even save your raid from wiping.

• Divine Illumination reduces the Mana cost of all of your abilities by 50% for 15 seconds on a 3-minute cooldown, this is an extremely powerful buff that should be used when you think you will be casting the most max rank healing spells or high damage situations where you will be continuously casting. Due to the longer cooldown, it is rare to get more than one use per fight.
• Divine Favor makes your next Holy Light, Flash of Light, or Holy Shock have a 100% chance to crit. This buff can be very helpful if you know a large amount of damage is coming or if you have to react to a high amount of unexpected damage.
• Aura Mastery increases the range of your Auras to 40 yards.
• Blessing of Protection gives a friendly target a buff that gives them immunity against physical attacks and debuffs for 10 seconds, however they cannot autoattack or use physical abilities during this buff.
• Blessing of Sacrifice provides a party member with a buff that transfers some of the damage they would be taking to the Paladin each time they are hit.
• Blessing of Freedom removes all movement impairing effects on a friendly target for 10 seconds.
• Lay on Hands heals a friendly target for an amount equal to the caster's maximum health and gives the target 900 Mana. This however takes all of the Paladin's Mana, so only use this in true emergencies.