Season of Discovery Holy Paladin Healer Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

When playing a Healer, you typically do not use a rotation, but more so you must determine which of your abilities to use in order to do the most healing while using the least resource and causing the least amount of over-healing. Familiarizing yourself with the tools available to you as a Holy Paladin is absolutely crucial to best optimize your Mana usage, especially in the lower level bands where Mana is likely to be a major issue.

• Holy Light is a large, single-target heal that casts very slowly. This can be used to preemptively heal incoming damage, but will often times lead to over-healing thus making it a less than optimal choice in most situations.
• Flash of Light is a very quick, efficient heal. While Flash of Light does heal less than Holy Light, it costs considerably less mana and synergizes incredibly well with talents like Illumination and the Rune Sacred Shield. This will be the ability you are casting primarily in order to avoid wasting Mana over-healing.
• Holy Shock is an instant cast heal that is extremely Mana inefficient, while this is a quick burst of healing that should be used in emergency situations or when moving you should generally try to avoid using it as it is extremely costly Mana wise.
• Keep Sacred Shield active on the primary damage recipient at all times.
• Beacon of Light should be kept active on a target at all times.
• Cast Horn of Lordaeron to maintain the buff as often as realistic with Mana in mind.
• While it is not an ability, ensure you are keeping the Sheath of Light buff active by auto attacking for a considerable amount of bonus spell power.
• Ensure you have the Aura of your choosing active. This will often times be Devotion Aura, but feel free to switch to any school of magic resistance if you find yourself taking a lot of that type of damage.

As a Holy Paladin, the seal you will be using can greatly benefit your group. Seal of Light can apply a debuff that will heal anyone who attacks the target you judged and Seal of Wisdom can return Mana to anyone attacking the target you judged. As we transition into larger group content this can be quite useful as the amount of healing done per Mana spent will often be well worth it. If you find yourself struggling with Mana, consider going into Seal of Martyrdom and auto attacking the boss with it active.

Blessings are incredibly powerful buffs unique to Paladin. Each Paladin is able to have one blessing active per friendly target, so make sure if you are playing with another Paladin to coordinate who is giving what blessing to each party member. Remember that with utility abilities like Blessing of Freedom and Blessing of Protection, this will remove the buffs; make sure to reapply them after using either of these.

Blessing of Freedom removes all snaring/slowing effects and makes the target immune to them for the duration of this buff. This is an incredibly powerful tool both for avoiding slows, but in some cases completely ignoring boss mechanics.

Blessing of Protection makes the target immune to all Physical damage. It can also be used to remove pesky stuns like Kidney Shot. This blessing shines especially on caster DPS who either pulled aggro or find themselves in the middle of a pack of mobs.

Blessing of Might increases the Attack Power of the friendly target for 5 minutes, extended to 10 minutes with Enhanced Blessings.

Blessing of Wisdom increases the Mana per 5 of the friendly target for 5 minutes, extended to 10 minutes with Enhanced Blessings.

Blessing of Salvation Reduces the threat the the friendly target generates by 30% for 5 minutes, extended to 10 minutes with Enhanced Blessings.

Blessing of Light Increases the amount of healing the target receives with Holy Light and Flash of Light for 5 minutes, extended to 10 minutes with Enhanced Blessings.

Auras are passive buffs the Paladin can choose which will benefit allies within 30 yards. These range from extra resistances against specific schools of magic to less spell casting push back. Each Paladin may only have one Aura active at a time, so make sure to coordinate if there is another Paladin in your group.

Concentration Aura gives a 35% chance to ignore spell push back when taking damage.

Frost Resistance Aura increases Frost resistance of all party members.

Fire Resistance Aura increases the Fire resistance of all party members.

Devotion Aura increases the Armor value of all party members.

Retribution Aura causes Holy damage to anyone who attacks a friendly target this aura active.

Lay on Hands is a massive heal that heals a friendly target for the Paladin's total max health. This costs all of your current Mana, so make sure only to use this in an absolute emergency. If you are specced into Improved Lay on Hands then it will also provide a massive armor buff to the target.

Divine Sacrifice is a powerful cooldown that greatly reduces the incoming damage of your party. This ability redirects 30% of all incoming damage to the Paladin and will automatically cancel itself after 10 seconds or if the Paladin goes below 20% health.

Divine Protection renders the Paladin immune to all physical damage for 8 seconds. During this time the Paladin will not be able to cast any physical attacks or melee swing. This is a weaker version of Divine Shield and should only really be used in a situation where Divine Shield is unavailable.

Divine Shield protects the Paladin from all incoming damage and spells for 10 seconds but increases attack speed by 100% while it is active. This is an incredibly strong cooldown that can be used not only to mitigate damage but in some cases completely trivialize mechanics.

Divine Intervention should only be used as wipe protection in a situation where your group is certainly going to die. The Paladin sacrifices themselves to shield an ally from all attacks and spells. This effect will render the target completely immune for 3 minutes though they will not be able to move or act while the buff is active.

Hammer of Justice stuns the target. This can act as a psuedo interrupt and should be used often to mitigate as much damage as possible.

Cleanse cleanses a friendly target, removing 1 disease, poison and magic effect.

Purify purifies a friendly target, removing 1 disease and poison effect.

Turn Undead fears an Undead target for 15 seconds.

Sense Undead shows the location of all nearby Undead on your mini map.

In WoW Classic, for the 5 seconds following using a Mana-consuming ability your character will not regenerate Mana outside of your MP5 stat. Once you have gone 5 seconds without spending Mana your Spirit will kick in and greatly increase your mana regen. This can be difficult as a Holy Paladin due to our reliance on constantly casting Flash of Light, so always ensure you have Blessing of Wisdom active on yourself.