Holy Paladin Healing Mythic+ Tips — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. Holy Paladin in Mythic+

Holy Paladin is one of the better healing specializations for Mythic+. It has excellent throughput for almost any healing situation in dungeons, many defensive tools, multiple cooldowns for emergencies, and good damage for a healer. Holy Paladin weaknesses in Mythic+ include low mobility, lack of a standard interrupt, and limited options for crowd control.

1.1. Holy Paladin Mythic+ Rotation

5-man healing is very similar to single-target healing, with the exception that you will sometimes find uses for Light of Dawn, and that if you have the Beacon of Virtue talent, you should use it when multiple party members are taking damage.

You can read our Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities page for more details.

1.2. Holy Paladin Utility

Due to the nature of dungeon content, healers will be expected to do damage and heal at the same time, as well as use your other utility to help your party perform well. Below is a list of abilities you should look for ways to use in Mythic+ at all times.

• Blessing of Protection will remove bleeds and other physical damage over time effects such as Grievous as well as preventing all physical damage to the target for 10 seconds. Often used on melee DPS players who might pull threat from your tank.
• Blessing of Freedom will remove or prevent the application of movement-impairing effects, including many that cannot be dispelled with Cleanse.
• Hammer of Justice will stun many mobs and can often be used to interrupt spell casting of targets that are not stun-immune.
• Devotion Aura is very strong defensive ability for yourself and your group. Use of Aura Mastery with it can prevent large amounts of damage and save party members from very large damage spikes, especially those who lack defensive abilities. Try to stand within range of the tank when possible for maximum benefit.
• Repentance is a crowd-control ability, but will only work against certain specific types of enemies. Using it will not place you in combat.
• Blinding Light is an Area of Effect disorient to enemies within 10 yards. The effect breaks when non-holy damage is done to the target(s). It can also be used to interrupt spell casting of one or more enemies.

2. Mythic+ Talents for Holy Paladins

Level	Choices
15	✓ Crusader's Might	✓ Bestow Faith	? Light's Hammer
30	? Unbreakable Spirit	✓ Cavalier	? Rule of Law
45	? Fist of Justice	? Repentance	? Blinding Light
60	✓ Devotion Aura	? Aura of Sacrifice	✗ Aura of Mercy
75	✗ Judgment of Light	? Holy Prism	✓ Holy Avenger
90	✓ Sanctified Wrath	✓ Avenging Crusader	✗ Awakening
100	? Divine Purpose	? Beacon of Faith	✓ Beacon of Virtue

For Level 15 talents Crusader's Might is taken more often in Mythic+ because it allows the Holy Paladin to play more offensively with Holy Shock and provide greater single target damage. Bestow Faith does find use in some places were greater spot healing is necessary, but Crusader's Might is usually superior for Mythic+ dungeons because healer damage is often crucial to success.

The level 30 talent of choice is Cavalier because it improves mobility, a weakness of Holy Paladins in dungeons. Both Unbreakable Spirit and Rule of Law can be taken for particular bosses or dungeons, but are not as generally useful.

The choice of talent in the level 45 row is entirely situational. We recommend Blinding Light as the default choice, but you should decide which benefits you most on a dungeon by dungeon basis.

The clear choice in almost all situations for level 60 talents is Devotion Aura. It provides a passive damage reduction to the Paladin and/or his group at all times and is a powerful defensive cooldown with Aura Mastery.

Aura of Sacrifice might be taken for a dungeon with a particularly difficult Tyrannical boss that does so much damage in a single ability or over a short duration that the damage reduction of Devotion Aura is not enough to survive. In that case the combination of Divine Shield and Aura of Sacrifice would provide greater damage reduction at the cost of an extra cooldown.

Holy Avenger is the most flexible talent on the level 75 row. It provides an additional cooldown that can be used for healing as well as dealing damage. Holy Prism provides a decent AoE heal and some damage, but cannot be used to improve single target/tank healing in an emergency situation as Holy Avenger can.

Because of the greater number of enemies in dungeons as compared to raids generally, as well as the smaller group size, Judgment of Light loses a great deal of value and should be avoided.

The debate between level 90 talents Sanctified Wrath and Avenging Crusader for Mythic+ content is still on-going and will likely continue for some time. Avenging Crusader has a higher healing potential, but its healing is not under the Paladin's control and can sometimes lead to the death of a player when the Paladin is using Avenging Crusader to heal.

By contrast, Sanctified Wrath provides less healing potential, but it is completely under the Paladin's control. He can heal the most important targets when needed without worrying that the healing will go to the wrong party member. In addition, Sanctified Wrath provides greater potential damage in Mythic+ because Avenging Wrath boosts the damage of all abilities, whereas Avenging Crusader only improves the damage of Judgment and Crusader Strike.

Beacon of Virtue is an incredibly powerful tool in Mythic+ dungeons and should almost always be taken as your level 100 talent. It allows the Paladin to turn their strong single-target healing into AoE healing for the entire party and do so regularly with a short cooldown.

3. Mythic+ Affixes

The way Mythic+ affixes are tiered in Battle for Azeroth has changed quite a bit since their launch in Legion.

There are now 3 weekly affixes and one seasonal affix. The first affix available instantly at level 2 and 3, the second affix starts at level 4, the third affix enabled at level 7, and finally the seasonal affix at level 10.

3.1. Tier One Affixes

• Fortified increases the Health pool of all non-boss enemies by 20% and damage dealt by 30%.
• Tyrannical increases the Health pool of boss enemies by 40% and their damage dealt by 15%.

Fortified and Tyrannical are the two affixes every player will see. These affixes shift the focus of dungeons from boss to trash depending on the week.

3.2. Tier Two Affixes

• Raging increases the damage dealt by enemies below 30% health by 100% until they die. You should be prepared to use cooldowns when dangerous enemies are low health, especially if your group lacks a way to dispel the buff off the enemies.
• Teeming adds additional trash mobs to certain packs throughout each dungeon.
• Bolstering buffs remaining enemies' Health pools and damage dealt by 20% when an enemy dies nearby. To counter this affix, help with damage on high Health mobs.
• Sanguine places a pool of blood on the ground when a mob is slain. This pool will heal remaining enemies who stay inside the zone and also damage players.
• Bursting forces enemy mobs to detonate when slain, afflicting the group with a stacking debuff that causes players to suffer 10% of their maximum Health in damage every four seconds. When handling the Bursting affix, make sure you have Beacon of Virtue ready when enemies die so that you can heal the entire party at once. If you have many stacks of bursting consider using Aura Mastery active for Devotion Aura to reduce the damage and Avenging Wrath or Holy Avenger to boost your ability heal through the damage.

3.3. Tier Three Affixes

• Volcanic spawns volcanic plumes underneath and around players when in combat with any enemy. When damaged by Volcanic, players suffer 50% of their maximum Health in damage. Make sure people in your group stay above 50% Health at all times to avoid unnecessary deaths.
• Grievous afflicts players with a stacking DoT when they fall below 90% health. Heal one person at a time instead of trying to heal all at once. Consider using Beacon of Virtue as you heal the debuff off a person to help any other affected players at the same time, and remember that in an emergency Blessing of Protection and Divine Shield will instantly remove the debuff.
• Quaking will periodically attempt to interrupt casters by creating a damaging zone around each player. About 3 seconds after the zone forms, it will deal 20% maximum Health in damage to each player caught in the zone as well as interrupting any casts and locking you out of that school for 4 seconds. Getting locked out can result in deaths or even wipes.
• Explosive will occasionally spawn Explosive Orbs that need to be targeted and burned down within a short period of time or they will deal significant damage to the party. You should make destroying them with Crusader Strike and Judgment a high priority so that your damage dealers do not have to switch targets away from the enemies they are fighting if possible.
• Necrotic causes all enemies' melee attacks to apply a stacking debuff that inflicts damage over time and reduces healing received.
• Skittish reduces the amount of threat generated by tanks throughout the dungeon.

3.4. Seasonal Affix

Infested is the seasonal affix for the launch of Battle for Azeroth. Enemies afflicted with the Infested debuff will be scattered throughout each dungeon once you reach key level 10. These mobs will heal enemies around them and when slain, will spawn two Spawn of G'huun that will attempt to infest remaining enemies.

There are several ways to handle Infested mobs depending on pack size, which mob is infested, and group composition. The first way to handle an Infested enemy is to burn down the infested target and the subsequently spawning Spawn of G'huun while either crowd controlling or ignoring the other mobs in the pack. The second way is to crowd control the Infested mob and burn down all the other enemies. Once the Spawns of Ghuun become active you should attempt to kill them and use your limited crowd-control abilities such as Fist of Justice and Blinding Light to prevent them from reaching other enemies.

4. Mythic+ Azerite Traits

1. S Tier: the strongest and most generally useful traits; these are always good choices.
2. A Tier: these traits are either slightly weaker than the S Tier traits, or only as strong in specific situations, but are still solid choices.
3. B Tier: a below-average trait that should be picked only in the absence of an S or A Tier trait.
4. C Tier: a weak trait that provides very little healing output or other utility and should be avoided if possible.

4.1. S Tier

• Blightborne Infusion provides a very large Critical Strike proc with decent uptime.
• Champion of Azeroth provides a long duration secondary stat proc that will help contribute to both healing and damage.
• Swirling Sands is another trait that provides a large secondary stat proc.
• Laser Matrix will provide both healing and damage.
• Filthy Transfusion does damage to enemies and heals you at the same time.
• Blessed Portents can be extremely potent on encounters with high damage.
• Resounding Protection is an all-round strong trait. It is always useful and provides solid throughput.
• Vampiric Speed will trigger often in Mythic+ dungeons, especially between boss encounters
• Endless Hunger will provide extra healing and great utility in a Mythic+ environment.
• Ancients' Bulwark will provide extra Versatility, which is especially useful in Mythic+ and heal you while moving, which can reduce down-time and increase your own survivability.

4.2. A Tier

• Archive of the Titans can be excellent if you are keeping up a rapid pace through the dungeon, but loses significantly if the pace is low or deaths are frequent. Use with caution.
• Apothecary's Concoctions can provide a solid amount of both healing and damage
• Breaking Dawn will make it easier to use Light of Dawn in dungeons.
• Glimmer of Light is a good trait that can increase both your healing or damage as needed.
• Radiant Incandescence adds a good amount of both healing and damage to your Holy Shock Critical Strikes.
• Secrets of the Deep requires you to move around and pick up orbs, but that also allows you some leeway in when you want to activate the buff.
• Anduin's Dedication / Sylvanas' Resolve these PvP traits provide a decent Intellect proc.
• Glory in Battle / Liberator's Might are PvP traits, but excellent Critical Strike and Haste procs.
• Blood Rite is another trait that provides a solid proc with decent uptime.
• Savior can provide extra healing to targets that need it most, but may do nothing if your party never drops to low health.
• Meticulous Scheming is a good haste proc, but requires you to pay attention to a buff you receive in order to activate it.
• Blood Siphon provides a good passive increase to your stats.
• Lifespeed The avoidance this provides increases your survivability, which makes it invaluable on a lot of dungeon fights.
• Azerite Veins provides incredible healing once it procs, although it can be unreliable with only 1 proc per minute. Activating during ticking damage will instantly remove the buff.
• Overwhelming Power is a good trait if you are not taking consistent damage.
• Impassive Visage provides good throughput if you are taking consistent damage. Does not work as well against single large damage events.

4.3. B Tier

• Shadow of Elune is a Haste proc with a movement speed bonus that might be useful at times.
• Grace of the Justicar is a strong trait in raids, but is limited by the smaller group size in dungeons.
• Unstable Catalyst's biggest downside is the requirement to stand still, which is not always feasible, especially in dungeons.
• On My Way is a decent trait with passive movement speed increase on top of it.
• Longstrider is an acceptable choice if you need more mobility, but you give up some healing potential in taking it.
• Stalwart Protector can provide an extra defensive ability for your party, but it is not a large absorption effect and requires the use of your Divine Shield.
• Divine Revelations provides a Mana return that is low and generally not needed. However, the increased healing of Flash of Light is somewhat useful.
• Avenger's Might gives a decent amount of Mastery during Avenging Wrath which is useful for healing, but provides no increase to damage.
• Azerite Fortification can be useful if a dungeon has many packs of enemies with stuns or knockbacks.
• Bulwark of the Masses is a nice absorption shield that you can trigger regularly in dungeons.
• Gallant Steed is situationally useful if you or your party need more mobility.

4.4. C Tier

• Bracing Chill and Concentrated Mending both proc healing in one way or another. The healing itself is pretty mediocre.
• Earthlink does not provide enough Intellect to be considered a solid choice.
• Self Reliance it is generally extremely hard to keep 12-yard distance between yourself and enemies, especially considering you want to be in melee range often to do damage.
• Ephemeral Recovery provides very little Mana. On top of that, extra Mana is generally not needed in dungeon content.
• Woundbinder procs Haste, but on low uptime and the amount is pretty low.
• Moment of Compassion provides healing that is too low and too conditional to be of any real use.
• Synergistic Growth provides too small a bonus to Mastery to be particularly useful.
• Empyreal Ward is used too infrequently to be of any significant value as an Azerite trait.
• Martyr's Breath encourages use of a situational spell for very little benefit.

5. Changelog