Holy Paladin Healing Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.2

Welcome to our Rotation page for Holy Paladins. On this page, you will find everything you need to know about playing the spec in Raiding and Mythic+ scenarios.

While healers do not follow strict rotations, there are many different ideas to consider, and once you gain a general understanding of how to prioritize your different spells, you will want to continue reading down the page to find more info on how to play some of the more advanced elements of the spec.

If the rotations below seem overwhelming to you, you might benefit from visiting our page dedicated to Beginners and those who want an easier experience; this outlines a close-to-optimal rotation in simpler terms.

The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation tips, please visit our PvP page below.

Healing as a Holy Paladin is, for the most part, all about casting the core abilities as much as possible and in the right circumstances. Regardless of if you are focusing on Raiding, Mythic+, or even PvP, your rotation will be somewhat similar, making it easy to transition between the different types of content.

The standard melee rotation focuses on casting Holy Shock as much as possible to gain healing through Glimmer of Light and to generate as much Holy Power as possible for Light of Dawn. Our goal is to cast these two abilities as much as possible. We will also be making use of Infusion of Light as much as possible in order to reduce the cooldown of Holy Shock through the Imbued Infusions talent.

• Keep Beacon of Light on the tank or on another target who is taking constant damage.
• Apply Barrier of Faith to a tank or another target taking high damage.
• If at 5 Holy Power, cast Light of Dawn or Word of Glory.
• Use Holy Shock if you have two charges.
• Consume Infusion of Light.
• Cast Holy Shock.
• Cast Judgment.
• Spend Holy Power.
• Cast Hammer of Wrath when possible.
• Cast Consecration if you have nothing else to do.
• Cast Crusader Strike as your lowest priority.

The main rotational changes for the Avenging Crusader build come in the form of maximizing your healing during the Avenging Crusader window. This means you will be prioritizing Judgment over any other ability.

When you have Avenging Crusader active, your priority will be the following:

• Keep Beacon of Light on the tank or on another target who is taking constant damage.
• Apply Barrier of Faith to a tank or another target taking high damage.
• Cast Judgment.
• If at 5 Holy Power, cast Light of Dawn or Word of Glory.
• Cast Crusader Strike.
• Cast Holy Shock on cooldown.
• Cast Holy Prism.
• Cast Hammer of Wrath.
• Spend Holy Power.

When Avenging Crusader is not active, your rotation will change slightly. Holy Shock will be much more important, and we want to make sure we are constantly consuming Infusion of Light when possible.

• Keep Beacon of Light on the tank or on another target who is taking constant damage.
• Apply Barrier of Faith to a tank or another target taking high damage.
• If at 5 Holy Power, cast Light of Dawn or Word of Glory.
• Use Holy Shock if you have two charges.
• Consume Infusion of Light.
• Cast Holy Prism.
• Cast Judgment.
• Cast Hammer of Wrath when possible.
• Cast Holy Shock.
• Spend Holy Power.
• Cast Crusader Strike.
• Cast Consecration if you have nothing else to do.

5-man healing is very similar to raiding rotations, with the exception that you will be casting Word of Glory much more frequently.

• Cast Beacon of Virtue whenever your group is in need of healing.
• When you have 5 Holy Power, cast Word of Glory for single-target healing and when your group members aren't stacked. Cast Light of Dawn when your group members are stacked (especially if Beacon of Virtue is active).
• Cast Holy Shock on cooldown.
• Consume Infusion of Light on Flash of Light when necessary.
• Cast Hammer of Wrath when possible.
• Cast Judgment.
• Cast Crusader Strike.
• Cast Consecration if it is not already active.
• Spend Holy Power if you have 3 or 4.

While every Infusion of Light proc will have some use, Flash of Light has very strong synergy with Divine Revelations, Tower of Radiance and Beacon of Virtue. One of the strongest heals you can output in small group content comes from using Beacon of Virtue, followed by a Flash of Light on one of the beacon targets.

If you in more information about how Holy Paladin plays in 5-man content please refer to our dedicated Mythic+ page which you can find below:

Dealing damage as a Holy Paladin is fairly simple, and most of it will come when you are doing healing anyway. If you find yourself trying to maximize your overall damage output with no regard for your healing, you can follow this rotation:

1. Keep Consecration on the ground. This is especially important in AoE situations.
2. Cast Shield of the Righteous if you have the Holy Power available to do so.
3. Cast Judgment off cooldown if using the Righteous Judgment talent.
4. Cast Hammer of Wrath off cooldown.
5. Cast Holy Shock off cooldown.
6. Use Crusader Strike if everything else is on cooldown.

With many different ways to generate Holy Power, you will often have to make the decision of whether to cast Light of Dawn or Word of Glory. In raid settings, Light of Dawn will almost always be superior unless a player is about to die. In small group content and Mythic+, it is harder to get full value from Light of Dawn, making Word of Glory a more desirable cast. That being said, if you do find your group members stacked up and not in need of a strong single-target heal, then Light of Dawn can still be extremely effective.

Throughout Shadowlands and BfA, Holy Paladin did not really ever use their Infusion of Light procs and ignored them to continue their normal rotation. In Dragonflight, this has changed specifically due to Imbued Infusions. With so much our kit revolving around Holy Shock and Glimmer of Light, we want to cast Holy Shock as much as possible. Reducing the cooldown of it through Imbued Infusions is what helps to enable the general playstyle for every build. There are currently three ways to consume Infusion of Light:

1. Holy Light generates 2 Holy Power.
2. Flash of Light reduces the mana cost by 70%.
3. Judgment prevents an additional 100% damage dealt by the target.

In general, consuming an Infusion of Light proc on any of these three abilities will give you close results. The actual best choice is highly situational. In most cases, you will want to use Flash of Light as your default cast due to Divine Revelations and the opportunity to gain a quick Holy Power through Tower of Radiance. When your group is not taking heavy damage, then you should instead be consuming infusion with Judgment. Holy Light is very strong if you will have time to finish the full cast before damage is healed and your group is well stacked to make use of Resplendent Light. In general, you will be using Holy Light the least and cast Judgment or Flash of Light 50/50.

With the reintroduction of Beacon of the Lightbringer, choosing the best beacon targets is a bit more complicated due to Beacon of Faith. In Mythic+, you will generally use it on your two squishiest DPS players unless your tank is taking very heavy damage. In raid, you will use one beacon on the tank taking the most damage and the other on a ranged DPS. By standing in melee and having a beacon on a ranged target, you will have full mastery effectiveness at all times, resulting in a massive healing increase. If you are facing an encounter where the raid is stacked, or both tanks are taking heavy damage, you can instead place the beacons on both tanks or on players who are most in danger. You should not aim to be swapping it mid-combat, though, unless a player with it dies.

As a Holy Paladin, you have several healing cooldowns. You should use them as we explain below:

• Avenging Wrath increases your healing done and damage done by 20% for 20 seconds. It is very useful during periods of high sustained damage.
• Daybreak is fairly simple to use as it just instantly causes all of your active Glimmer of Lights to trigger and be consumed, returning mana. This is an extremely strong burst heal, and you will want to be making constant use of it for not only the healing but the mana return as well.
• Divine Toll is a strong burst heal that can be used to quickly apply Glimmer of Light to your allies. For that reason, it is best used after Daybreak in order to get glimmers out on your allies right after consuming them.
• Tyr's Deliverance will buff your allies, increasing the healing you can do to them with Flash of Light, Holy Light, and Holy Shock. When using this ability, you will want to make sure you are casting these spells on buffed allies, as well as extending the duration as long as possible with the Boundless Salvation.
• Lay on Hands should be used to save dying raid members, especially tanks.
• Blessing of Sacrifice lasts 12 seconds, transferring 30% of the damage taken by your target to you. The effect is automatically canceled if the transferred damage would cause you to fall below 20% health. This cooldown is excellent for reducing the damage taken by the tank or other raid members. Be cautious, however, because Blessing of Sacrifice can be dangerous to your own life if used without a damage reduction cooldown, such as Divine Protection or Divine Shield, or when simultaneous raid damage independently threatens your life such that the additional damage taken from Blessing of Sacrifice can lead to your death.
• Aura Mastery empowers your chosen aura, increasing its range to 40 yards and also improving its efficiency. It is a raid cooldown, and it should be used at a time designated by your healing officer or raid leader.
• Blessing of Protection can be used to clear harmful physical damage debuffs and bleeds from the target. Be mindful of the fact that bosses will not attack targets affected by Blessing of Protection, though, so only cast it on the current tank if the off-tank is prepared to take over.
• Blessing of Freedom removes movement-impairing effects from the targeted raid member, which can be very useful in certain situations.

The above information should be sufficient to allow you to play a Holy Paladin at a very high level. There are only a few more details that you need to understand to further improve your performance.

Mastery: Lightbringer increases your healing to targets the closer they are to your position. Specifically, your healing is maximized on targets that are within 10 yards of you, and it decreases the farther away they are from then on. In general, being with the melee group will maximize your benefit from Mastery, and you should be there unless you can identify a specific reason to do otherwise.