Holy Paladin Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1.5

1. Holy Paladin Talent Builds

2. Talent Choices for Holy Paladin

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

Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area (such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Tranquil Mind and Codex of the Tranquil Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

There are currently two very different talent builds for Holy Paladins. The first is based around Avenging Crusader and the other is built around the Azerite Trait Glimmer of Light. We will discuss the basics of each in turn before examining each row of talents individually.

2.1. Avenging Crusader

• Level 15: Bestow Faith
• Level 30: Rule of Law
• Level 45: Any
• Level 60: Devotion Aura
• Level 75: Judgment of Light
• Level 90: Avenging Crusader
• Level 100: Beacon of Faith

The Avenging Crusader build was the standard build in Battle for Azeroth for almost every raiding situation prior to Patch 8.1. It capitalized on the power and Mana-efficiency of the Avenging Crusader talent and substantial Beacon of Faith healing. It is still a viable healing setup, particularly if the damage patterns of an encounter are less consistent, or you are otherwise lacking in the gear requirements necessary for the Glimmer of Light build to excel.

2.2. Glimmer of Light

• Level 15: Crusader's Might
• Level 30: Rule of Law
• Level 45: Any
• Level 60: Devotion Aura
• Level 75: Holy Avenger
• Level 90: Sanctified Wrath
• Level 100: Divine Purpose

The Glimmer of Light build is a unique way of healing as a Holy Paladin that emphasizes casting as many Holy Shocks as possible on as many different people as possible, in order to spread the Glimmer of Light buff around your raid and take advantage of the healing it can do. The talents listed are all directed at maximizing these casts:

• Crusader's Might will allow your Crusader Strike to reduce the cooldown of Holy Shock.
• Avenging Wrath reduces the Holy Shock cooldown in half while active.
• Divine Purpose gives a chance to not place Holy Shock on cooldown when cast.

For more information on the Glimmer of Light build, please see the Stats, Azerite, and FAQ pages of this guide.

3. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents for Holy Paladins

✔ Crusader's Might

✔ Bestow Faith

? Light's Hammer

• Crusader's Might causes Crusader Strike to reduce the cooldown of Holy Shock and Light of Dawn by 1.5 seconds.
• Bestow Faith is an active ability with a 12-second cooldown. It places a 5-second buff on an ally, which heals them at the end of the 5 seconds (but which does nothing until then).
• Light's Hammer is an active ability with a 1-minute cooldown. It allows you to place a hammer on the ground at the targeted location, which lasts for 14 seconds. Every 2 seconds, it damages enemies within 10 yards, and heals up to 6 allies in the same radius.

For pure healing output with the Avenging Crusader build, the best talent in this tier is Bestow Faith.

Crusader's Might is a viable progression talent on many fights, especially fights with very predictable damage or mechanics. It is also essential to the healing potential of the Glimmer of Light build

Light's Hammer could be used on encounters where a large number of stacked raid members will sustain damage. It is quite poor on fights where the raid must spread out or move out of the active area. It is also fairly expensive compared to the Mana-efficient Bestow Faith.

For dungeon content, we recommend Bestow Faith as the default choice, with Crusader's Might as a possible option in case you want to deal additional damage (in addition to its healing benefit) or if you are using the Glimmer of Light build.

4. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents for Holy Paladins

? Unbreakable Spirit

? Cavalier

✔ Rule of Law

• Unbreakable Spirit passively reduces the cooldown of your Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Lay on Hands by 30%.
• Cavalier causes your Divine Steed to have 2 charges.
• Rule of Law is an active ability with 2 charges and a 30-second recharge time. It increases the range of your heals and your Mastery: Lightbringer by 50% for 10 seconds. Regarding the Mastery range increase, your Mastery causes your healing to have full effectiveness on targets that are within 10 yards of you, with the effectiveness decreasing the farther away they are beyond that point. While Rule of Law is active, the maximum effectiveness radius is extended by 50%, to 15 yards, and only after that does your healing start to decrease.

In raids, we believe that the best choice is Rule of Law, which not only provides you with increased maximum range, but more importantly also increases the maximum effectiveness radius of your Mastery: Lightbringer to 15 yards. Note that this is also the only talent in this tier that increases overall healing done.

Unbreakable Spirit might be worth taking instead, but only if there are survivability issues that require more frequent use of Divine Shield or Divine Protection.

Finally, Cavalier is a poor choice for raid content in general, but it could work for fights where you absolutely need increased mobility.

In dungeons, all three talents are viable, but we recommend taking Cavalier by default, especially for Mythic+ content. Unbreakable Spirit has the same caveats as for raid content, while Rule of Law will only prove useful in exceptional cases where the group is spread out.

5. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents for Holy Paladins

? Fist of Justice

? Repentance

? Blinding Light

• Fist of Justice causes your Judgment to reduce the remaining cooldown of Hammer of Justice by 10 seconds.
• Repentance is an active ability with an 15-second cooldown. It is a form of crowd-control that incapacitates the target for up to 1 minute. Damage done will break the effect. Repentance can only be used against Humanoids, Demons, Undead, Dragonkin, and Giants.
• Blinding Light is an active ability with an 90-second cooldown. It disorients all enemies within a 10-yard radius around you for 6 seconds. Non-holy damage done to them will break the disorient effect.

The talents in this tier are completely situational, and you should choose them based on the requirements of the encounter.

That said, you will generally prefer Blinding Light for the additional interrupt; in Mythic+ dungeons especially, the mass interrupt is extremely useful. Alternatively, it can be nice to use Repentance for crowd-control in some situations, but Blinding Light is typically better.

6. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents for Holy Paladins

✔ Devotion Aura

? Aura of Sacrifice

? Aura of Mercy

• Devotion Aura is an aura that causes allies within 10 yards to take 10% reduced damage, split over the number of allies affected by the aura (2 allies means that each one takes 5% reduced damage, and so on). During Aura Mastery, all allies within 40 yards benefit from the full damage reduction (20% for each player).
• Aura of Sacrifice is an aura that redirects 10% of all damage taken by allies within 10 yards of you to you, whenever you are above 75% health. During Aura Mastery, 30% of all damage taken in range is redirected to the Paladin and reduced by 75%. This effect ends when the Paladin drops below 75% health regardless of remaining Aura Mastery duration.
• Aura of Mercy is an aura that causes you to heal 3 injured allies within 10 yards every second for a modest amount. During Aura Mastery, all allies within 40 yards are healed, and the healing amount is doubled.

All 3 talents in this tier are viable, depending on the situation.

If a particular event may kill raid members, the 20% raid-wide damage reduction provided by Devotion Aura during Aura Mastery is both unique and invaluable. In addition its passive effect will prevent a substantial amount of damage taken. As such, Devotion Aura should be considered the default talent pick for this row.

Aura of Sacrifice is a damage reduction cooldown that can be stronger than Devotion Aura but has a weaker passive effect and is not guaranteed to last the full duration. If your raid needs the extra damage reduction, Aura of Sacrifice can provide over Devotion Aura enough to also use your Divine Shield or a Protection Paladin's Blessing of Spellwarding to guarantee its full effectiveness, it is a powerful option.

If no damage events call for the raid-wide damage reduction of Devotion Aura, Aura of Mercy provides significant amounts of free healing over the course of the encounter, and useful raid healing during Aura Mastery.

In Mythic+ dungeons, Devotion Aura is typically most useful, because with at most 5 and as few as 1 or 2 players inside the 10-yard aura, each affected member will gain significant damage reduction. It can be particularly useful for high-end Mythic+ with extremely high tank damage, by simply staying near the tank to provide constant damage reduction.

7. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents for Holy Paladins

✔ Judgment of Light

✔ Holy Prism

✔ Holy Avenger

• Judgment of Light causes Judgment to apply a debuff with 25 charges to the target, called Judgment of Light. When the target is attacked, the attacker is healed and one charge is consumed.
• Holy Prism is an active ability with a 20-second cooldown. It allows you to target an ally or an enemy. When cast at an ally, it heals the target and damages 5 enemies within 15 yards of them. When cast at an enemy, it damages them and heals 5 allies within 15 yards of them.
• Holy Avenger is an active ability with a 90-second cooldown that increases your haste and the healing of your Holy Shock by 30% for 20 seconds.

For progression, we recommend Judgment of Light for Mana sustainability with the Avenging Crusader build, or Holy Avenger for another healing cooldown and the added Haste during Avenging Wrath, if using the Glimmer of Light build.

Holy Prism is competitive, but it is less Mana-efficient than either of the other talents on this row. As such it should only be used on boss fights that are relatively short and whose damage patterns or positioning particularly suit Holy Prism.

In Mythic+ dungeons, again, all 3 talents are viable, although we believe Holy Avenger is the best choice for high end Mythic+ progression, as it allows you to rotate between Holy Avenger and Avenging Wrath and have a cooldown up for every single trash pack.

8. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents for Holy Paladins

✔ Sanctified Wrath

✔ Avenging Crusader

? Awakening

• Sanctified Wrath increases the duration of Avenging Wrath by 25%, and reduces the cooldown of Holy Shock by 50% while Avenging Wrath is active.
• Avenging Crusader is a two minute cooldown with a 20 second duration that replaces Avenging Wrath. When Avenging Crusader is active your Judgment and Crusader Strike have their cooldowns reduced by 30% and any damage you deal with them will heal 3 injured allies for 250% of the damage dealt, each.
• Awakening gives Light of Dawn a 15% chance to trigger the Avenging Wrath buff for 10 seconds. If Avenging Wrath is already active, the duration will be extended by 10 seconds.

The talent choice on this row is essential to the proper functioning of whichever build you have chosen to use. Avenging Crusader for the standard build or Avenging Wrath for the Glimmer of Light build.

Awakening is only useful if the raid is taking very consistent sustained damage and is stacked up well enough to make good and regular use of Light of Dawn.

For Mythic+ dungeons Sanctified Wrath is the superior choice, even though it provides slightly less healing, because the healing it does is entirely under the Paladin's control. Furthermore, Sanctified Wrath allows the Paladin to do more damage than Avenging Crusader.

9. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents for Holy Paladins

✔ Divine Purpose

✔ Beacon of Faith

✔ Beacon of Virtue

• Divine Purpose causes Light of Dawn and Holy Shock to have a 20% chance to not trigger their cooldowns, and to make their next cast (within seconds) free of cost.
• Beacon of Faith is an active ability with no cooldown. It allows you to place a second Beacon of Light on a different target. The second Beacon target will receive the same healing as the first one, but both beacons have 30% reduced efficiency (when compared to not using this talent).
• Beacon of Virtue replaces Beacon of Light. It has a 15-second cooldown, and it lasts 8 seconds. It allows you to place a Beacon of Light on the target, which also affects 3 injured allies within 30 yards. All 4 targets are healed for 40% of all healing you do for the 8-second duration. Your Flash of Light and Holy Light casts on these targets will refund 25% of their Mana cost.

For the Avenging Crusader build, Beacon of Faith is the recommended talent on this row. Having a Beacon for each tank is incredibly powerful. It removes the need to swap your Beacon between tanks during the encounter, as well as providing support to both tanks if they are taking damage at the same time.

Divine Purpose is very useful with the Glimmer of Light build as it increases your casts of Holy Shock. Divine Purpose also has uses on encounters where only one tank at a time ever takes damage, or you are consistently out of range of one of the tanks.

For Mythic+ dungeons, Beacon of Virtue is highly recommended, and we consider it by far the best talent in almost every situation.

10. PvP Talents (War Mode)

In Battle for Azeroth, there will be the option to enable "War Mode". Enabling War Mode grants the following benefits:

• PvP talents are enabled in the outdoor world.
• 10% increase in World Quest rewards at max level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at max level. However, doing so will enable PvP combat, and the possibility of being attacked by members of the opposite faction while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

10.1. General PvP Talents

1. Adaptation automatically removes loss of control effects longer than 5 seconds.
2. Relentless reduces the duration of crowd control effects by 20%, rather than removing them.
3. Gladiator's Medallion is an ability that removes all movement impairing and all loss of control effects when used.

We recommend Adaptation for levelling and questing with War Mode active since it will trigger automatically when you are in a long crowd control.

10.2. Holy Paladin PvP Talents

While the talents below might not be the best for purely open world PvP combat, we believe them to be a solid compromise for both PvE and PvP combat in a small group if you have War Mode enabled.

• Light's Grace provides an incredibly powerful boost to your Holy Light as well as a damage reduction.
• Avenging Light will increase your damage while you heal yourself or your group.
• Divine Favor gives you a large emergency heal on a relatively short cooldown.

11. Changelog