World of Warcraft: Forever Holy Paladin Leveling Guide

Healers typically make slower levelers on average due to their inability to kill mobs quickly while questing, compared to full DPS specs. That being said, many Paladin abilities scale with Spell Power, which means that you can gain a ton of damage from wearing your typical healer gear. Combining that with the large array of abilities Holy Paladin has that can increase your damage output, Holy Paladin can become a fairly solid leveling spec.

One of the other benefits to playing Holy is that you will have a very easy time healing dungeons once you unlock Flash of Light. Healers are often highly desired, so you should have no trouble finding groups to run dungeons when you find yourself bored of questing, or end up with a lot of quests for a specific dungeon.

In this page we will be providing recommendations for your specific level. This can help you to decide how best to spend talent points, where to quest, and what items you should keep an eye out for while on your journey to Level 60. That being said, much of Forever is about the journey itself, and we encourage you to deviate from our recommendations if you find yourself wanting to explore on your own. There are a ton of things that have still yet to be discovered, and exploring the unknown is half the fun!

The above build is specifically made for leveling. Early into your leveling journey you won't often need the extra healing provided from the Holy tree, meaning that you can spend those points in the Retribution tree instead. Pathing through Benediction and Holy Conduit helps to manage some of the high mana costs that come from frequently using damage-dealing abilities. Improved Judgement and 1 point in Conviction allow you to then take maybe the most important early talent for Paladins in general: Pursuit of Justice. This provides you with a movement speed increase, which is incredibly powerful while leveling.

Once you have these abilities unlocked in the Ret tree, you can start pathing through Holy to increase your healing output and capabilities. At this point you are likely beginning to start healing groups from time to time, making these healing bonuses even more valuable. Some talent choices such as Consecrated Ground and Improved Seals are taken just to help increase your damage output though.

The Level 53 Dilemma

Once you reach Level 53, you will have 7 points remaining and not a lot of strong choices. You can realistically place these talents anywhere you prefer, but we have opted for Sanctified Judgement, Sacred Arbiter, and a few extra points in Conviction to help increase your damage output once again.

Holy Paladin has an extremely straightforward rotation, regardless of whether you are focusing on keeping allies alive or dealing damage. Your main priority will be casting Flash of Light to help maintain players' health, with Holy Light only being used in emergencies and when Mana permits. Similarly, once you get access to Holy Shock and Light's Vigil, these abilities provide you with a nice healing boost, but they are extremely expensive and should be used sparingly.

The overall priority will be as follows:

• Flash of Light – is your most efficient heal. You can cast it frequently to help maintain health bars, but during intense damage periods you may need to rely on other harder-hitting heals that are very expensive to compensate for their higher healing efficacy.
• Holy Light – is less efficient than Flash of Light, but it will offer a lot more healing per cast. You will want to be casting this when heavy damage is occurring and you can afford the cost.
• Holy Shock – is an instant cast heal that is very inefficient, but can be used in emergency situations where you need to quickly heal a player to prevent their death. It is also a nice backup to heal a player even if you have to move.
• Light's Vigil – is a 1.5-second cast that applies a buff to an ally. When you cast Holy Shock on the player with the buff, your Holy Shock cooldown will be reset and the buff will be consumed. This will also deal a burst of healing to everyone in that target's party. While this is very expensive to do, it is your only way of doing AoE healing and can be used to prepare for damage, allowing you to quickly heal the group back up once the hit came in. Getting the most healing out of Holy Paladin will require you to use this ability as much as possible while still having enough Mana to make it through the rest of the fight. It is a difficult balancing act that will take some practice, but feels very rewarding when you pull it off well.

Holy Paladin also has a ton of tools that can be used to deal damage and help kill enemies at a much faster pace. Most of these can be cast on cooldown, but you will want to make sure that you are managing your Mana carefully to be able tto heal if necessary. The overall priority is as follows:

• Consecration – will deal a large amount of AoE damage but it is very expensive to cast. You will want to maintain it on enemies as much as you can afford.
• Judgement – unleashes the seal you have active. When optimizing for damage, you will want to be using Seal of Righteousness, which deals an additional burst of damage. Cast this as often as possible.
• Holy Strike – can be cast on cooldown for extra damage.
• Exorcism – can be cast when fighting an Undead or Demon.

Additionally, it is important that you are aware of some of the utility you have at your disposal. These abilities can help you to get out of dangerous situations or keep players alive in desperate moments.

• Divine Intervention is one of the more iconic Paladin abilities, allowing you to sacrifice yourself in order to remove your target from combat. Typically this is used when your party or raid is about to wipe. You will cast the ability on a Healer so that after the wipe they can start resurrecting players without needing to run back from the graveyard.
• Lay on Hands will cost you all of your remaining mana, but it will also full heal a target. This can be the difference maker in a player living or dying during a very dangerous moment. Skilled players are able to use this to save pulls at the expense of their Mana.
• Blessing of Freedom grants your target immunity to movement impairing effects. If your target is already rooted or frozen in place, casting it will remove these debuffs. This ability is extremely valuable in PvP situations specifically, but also has its uses in regular PvE content, i.e. when a melee DPS is rooted in place while out of melee range.
• Blessing of Protection causes the target to become immune to any physical damage for its short duration. However, when you cast this on a player, they will be unable to attack or deal physical damage. Typically this is best used on casters or healers who have aggro and need to continue healing or get enemies off them, including yourself.
• Mass Salvation reduces the amount of threat a player generates. Previously this ability was called Blessing of Salvation and could not be applied to another player who had another Blessing active already. However, it has been changed and you are now able to apply it to it multiple players at once.

While leveling you will often be in situations where you do not have much choice for your stats, and are instead just equipping whatever you have available. As you level up and get more access to gear, Intellect can be extra valuable simply for the fact that it increases your Mana pool, reducing the amount of time you need to spend drinking, and reducing the risk of you running out of mana in the middle of a pull.

Early during your leveling journey you can focus on Weapon Damage, Hit, and Critical Strike, as auto attacks will be a large percentage of your damage. Eventually Spell Power will start taking over as you increase in level and get access to more spells and abilities, and it will also show up on gear drops more often. Healing Power will be the most optimal when focused on only healing, and every item with it will also provide Spell power, albeit at lower rates than a pure Spell power item.

The below list will reflect how you should prioritize stats. Keep in mind that Spell Power will be your top stat when focused on damage, otherwise you can ignore it and focus on Healing Power and other important stats instead.

1. Healing Power
   • Increases the healing of all your abilities.
2. Intellect
   • Increases your Mana and Spell Critical Strike Chance
3. MP5
   • Stands for Mana per 5, which is the amount of mana you restore every 5 seconds. This is not impacted by whether or not you have recently or are actively casting spells. You always gain the full MP5.
4. Critical Strike
   • Increases the Critical Strike Chance of your damaging and healing abilities.
5. Haste
   • Reduces your spell cast times.
6. Spirit
   • Increases your mana regeneration when you are not casting.

Forever has introduced overhauls to many of the questing zones, significantly increasing the amount of quests and items you can gain. With so many new revamped zones, it can be confusing when deciding where to invest your time into or where to travel. Our slider below will recommend zones for your level, factoring in the number of quests available and the proximity to dungeons for each level range.

In most cases you will want to fully progress through each zone. Near the end of an area's quest chains you can often find quests that require you to delve into a dungeon. These quests reward massive XP and powerful items. You will want to make sure that you consult our Dungeon Hub so you are not missing any potential quests before completing a dungeon. You might also learn about some faction-specific quests that you may not have been previously aware of.

• Zones to Quest in:
  • Loch Modan/Darkshore
  • The Barrens
• Available Dungeons:
  • Hall of Thanes
  • Ragefire Chasm

• Zones to Quest in:
  • Westfall/Darkshore
  • Silverpine Forest
• Available Dungeons:
  • Hall of Thanes
  • Ragefire Chasm and Ruins of Lordaeron

• Zones to Quest in:
  • Westfall/Redridge Mountains
  • The Barrens/Stonetalon Mountains
• Available Dungeons:
  • Hall of Thanes
  • Wailing Caverns

• Zones to Quest in:
  • Redridge Mountains/Duskwood
  • Hillsbrad Foothills/Stonetalon Mountains
• Available Dungeons:
  • The Stockade
  • Shadowfang Keep and Wailing Caverns

• Zones to Quest in:
  • Ashenvale/Duskwood
  • Ashenvale/Duskwood
• Available Dungeons:
  • Blackfathom Deeps and The Stockade
  • Blackfathom Deeps and Shadowfang Keep

• Zones to Quest in:
  • Wetlands/Ashenvale
  • Hillsbrad Foothills/Wetlands
• Available Dungeons:
  • Excavation Site: Wetlands and Blackfathom Deeps
  • Excavation Site: Wetlands and Blackfathom Deeps

• Zones to Quest in:
  • Wetlands/Ashenvale
  • Wetlands/Thousand Needles
• Available Dungeons:
  • Excavation Site: Wetlands and Gnomeregan
  • Excavation Site: Wetlands and Razorfen Kraul

Listed below are a few important items we recommend picking up during your journey, as they offer not just a small upgrade compared to many of the other items that are available, but stand out as guaranteed rewards or particularly powerful options for you to grab.

• 2-Handed Weapons
  • Rhahk'Zor's Hammer drops in Deadmines and is one of the only early weapons with increases to Spell damage and Healing.
  • Alliance players can obtain Verigan's Fist through the The Test of Righteousness questline while Horde players can get Wolfsbane through Old Fire-Eye.
  • Corpsemaker offers a very high amount of strength and weapon damage that can make it worth equipping if you get access to it. This drops from Razorfen Kraul.
• One Handed Weapons
  • Durgen's Crescent Axe can be obtained from Hall of Thanes and is a decent early weapon.
  • Scepter of the Abandoned is an extremely powerful weapon that drops from Ruins of Lordaeron.
  • Blade of Silverlaine is of similar power to the Scepter of the Abandoned but instead drops from Shadowfang Keep.
  • Haunting Blade can be obtained through Shadowfang Keep.
  • Debt Collector is an extremely powerful weapon for both healing and damage that drops from Shadowfang Keep.
• Shields
  • Worn Turtle Shell Shield drops in Wailing Caverns and can be helpful in maintaining some of your early mana costs.
  • Kresh's Back drops in Wailing Caverns and provides extra defense that is very rare early into leveling, and useful if you ever plan on tanking early content.
  • Painwalker Buckler drops in Scarlet Monastery and provides unique bonuses that increase your healing + damage outputs as well as returning some extra mana.
• Helms
  • Helmets are not available at this level unless through crafting. For this reason, at level 25.
• Armor Pieces
  • In Forever, Professions have been revamped and now reward very powerful items relative to the level they are usable at. With Blacksmithing, you can craft a number of strong items such as Crusader's Silvered Chain Helm, Sterling Silver Shoulders, Crusader's Silvered Chain Shirt, and Crusader's Silvered Chain Leggings.
• Jewellery, Cloaks, and Trinkets
  • One of the strongest early rings come through faction dependent questlines. Horde can grab Seal of Sylvanas with a quest in Shadowfang Keep called Arugal Must Die, while Alliance can pick up Seal of Wrynn via An Audience with the King at Level 16.
  • At Level 20 you can complete the second step of the Friend of the Library Quest, to grab Field Researcher's Loop.
  • Worgenbane Talisman provides a small amount of mana and drops from Shadowfang Keep.
  • Through the quest Jarl Needs a Blade, you can obtain a solid ring: Reedknot Ring.
  • Alliance players can obtain Cloak of the Divine Storm through the A Strange Artifact quest chain. There is unfortunately no similar quest for Horde players, but this item is incredibly powerful and something you will use for a while.
  • Scorn's Icy Choker is a very powerful neck available through Scarlet Monastery.

The Forever Beta only allowed players to reach Level 30 meaning that we are unfortunately unable to provide specific advice on content and gear after Level 30. You can check back to this page once Forever has been fully released to see updated recommendations for the last 30 Levels.

The process of reaching Level 60 on Forever can take quite a while. To make that journey a bit easier we have provided you with some tips to maximize your time and efficiency:

• Keep Water on you.
  • In order to maximize your damage and keep yourself healthy through healing spells, you will need Mana. If you are out of Mana, your leveling speed will decrease significantly by just waiting for that Mana to regen. Keeping water on you is crucial to limit these periods of time to a minimum. Having food can also be helpful, but it is much less important due to the abundance of healing tools you have.
• Pick up Professions Early
  • Professions play a large role in Forever, especially if you plan on crafting gear with Blacksmithing. You will want to pick your professions as soon as possible and keep them up to date. It is highly recommended to start with Mining so that you can save yourself as much gold as possible when it comes to leveling Blacksmithing or Engineering (or both) later on.
• Log out in Rested Areas
  • It is incredibly important that you are logging out in rested areas at all times. While it can seem insignificant at the time, doing so will accumulate rested experience while you're not actively playing, and it will add up over the long run, especially if you are taking breaks for extended periods of time. Always look for the closet inn and take an extra few minutes to make your way there at the end of your gaming session.
• Fully complete Questing Zones
  • When you are in a zone that contains a dungeon, quest chains will often end with having you complete objectives inside that dungeon. These quests will provide a massive XP bonus and reward very powerful items. You should always aim to get all dungeon quests before completing the zone's dungeon and moving onto your next questing area.

Level	Important Ability/Class Quest/Game-Altering Talent
10	Lay on Hands unlocked
20	Alliance players can obtain Verigan's Fist through The Test of Righteousness Horde players can obtain Wolfsbane through Old Fire-Eye
30	Cloak of the Divine Storm can be obtained for Alliance Paladins
34	Divine Shield unlocked
40	Mount Class Quest available
41	Holy Shock (Talent) unlocked
52	Light's Vigil (Talent) unlocked
60	Epic Mount Class Quest available

Choosing your professions can be quite difficult as there are a ton of good choices available. It is highly recommended that you are picking up at least one gathering profession early on to help fund your profession leveling later. Mining is typically the best choice as it will give you materials that are used for Blacksmithing and Engineering. These are two of the strongest profession choices at max level for Holy Paladins, and getting a head start on one of them can be very valuable early on. Herbalism can also be a great choice if you plan on going Alchemy later on to craft your own elixirs, flasks, and mana potions.

Outside of your core professions, you can also pick up First Aid, Cooking, and Fishing. Each of them can offer you different bonuses, buffs, or items to make life easier while questing.

More WoW Forever Paladin Guides

Retribution Paladin Melee DPS Leveling Protection Paladin Tank Guide Retribution Paladin Melee DPS Guide Holy Paladin Healer Guide Protection Paladin Tank Leveling

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