Paladins as healers General advice . Healing basics . Paladin mana management works very differently from other healing classes , who mostly depend on spirit . A paladin ' s best mana return mechanic is . Additionally ( and as of patch 3 . 0 . 2 ) , most paladins ( from level 71 on ) rely on . These talents make intellect and critical strike rating much more attractive stats to paladin healers than the spirit and MP5 other classes prioritize . The 50 % healing reduction caused by Divine Plea makes very inefficient ( in terms of HPS ) while the spell is active , so it is generally better to stick to , and in raid situations , many paladins now use this as their primary heal . Also , paladin healers in raids also frequently use ( combined with and ) to restore mana to themselves when they run out . As of patch 4 . 0 . 1a , with Illumination removed , paladins rely as much on spirit as other healers . At lower gear levels and without the benefits of raid - wide mana regeneration buffs , your basic healing spell is more likely to be Flash of Light . With adequate gear ( and assuming the tank you are probably healing is also adequately geared ) for the situation , you can generally spam it in order to keep your target ' s health topped . In situations like this , Holy Light will generally be reserved for times when the HPS of Flash of Light is not adequate to keep up with damage . Holy Light has a relatively long casting time , so it ' s important to use it before you fall too far behind , or you may not be able to finish casting it in time . , the 51 point Holy tree talent ( thus available no earlier than level 60 ) partially makes up for the fact that paladins have no direct multi - target healing abilities . As it echoes to the Beacon ' s target any healing done to other party / raid members , it is a very helpful way of ensuring the tank ( or often the paladin himself ) is kept alive while the paladin is healing other people . In urgent situations , it may be wise to use a combination of and to trigger , which will give you another instant cast Flash of Light or an increased critical chance on your next Holy Light . This is highly mana inefficient , of course , so it should be reserved only for situations where you do not have enough time to complete a more efficient heal . In dire situations , Lay on Hands will provide a very large , instantaneous burst heal to your target . This can be a potent tool when a battle starts to go downhill . This ability has a fairly long cooldown , so choosing when to use it can be difficult . It is also important to consider your various damage mitigation abilities . will prevent you from taking any damage for 12 seconds , allowing you to focus on healing the other members of your party in peace or giving you valuable time to restore your own health . ( learned at level 80 ) can absorb damage for your target while increasing your HPS output and mana regeneration . The amount of damage absorbed will scale with your own spell power , making this a highly effective tool for holy paladins . ( learned at level 46 ) can also be used to transfer damage from your target to yourself . Because paladin healers must use direct healing spells , they cannot always wait to see how much damage their target has taken before deciding which heal to cast . This results in " spamming " ( usually of Flash of Light ) or chain - casting and in turn , paladin healers are sometimes criticized for " overhealing " ( which is essentially wasting mana by healing a target for more than the amount of damage he has taken ) . Overhealing that doesn ' t make you run out of mana is fully acceptable . Remember — it is always better to overheal than underheal and suffer wipe after wipe . Buffs . As of Patch 4 . 0 . 1 , Blessing of Wisdom has been removed , being merged with Blessing of Might . Blessing of Might and Blessing of Kings have also been made a group wide buff , so buffing one target will buff all others in the group . They have also been given an extended duration of sixty minutes . Blessing of Kings will have the most generic benefits for the group as a whole . It provides a 5 % bonus to Strength , Agility , Intellect , and Stamina , and provides an amount of spell resistance dependent on level . For a diverse group , this might be the best buff to use unless asked otherwise by the group members . Blessing of Might will now provide an increase in attack power by 10 % and grant a various amount of mana regeneration . This buff will be most beneficent to the mana users and DPS of a group , especially mages . In times where you are running low on mana , this might be wise to cast . There isn ' t a lot of flexibility allowed anymore , but a group with two paladins should be able to work together to provide both buffs to the group . Raiding . In raid environments , healers are often divided into raid healers and tank healers . Because of Beacon of Light and the heavy - duty output of Holy Light , paladins are usually considered the best class for healing tanks . In raids , a holy paladin will often beacon whichever tank is taking the most damage ( usually , the main tank ) , then spam heals on the other tanks or help heal the raid so that heals are constantly being reflected onto the main tank . When more than one holy paladin is present , they may be assigned to beacon different targets to maximize the reflected heals , but if the main tank is taking enough steady damage , it is not necessarily a bad thing to have multiple beacons on them . Sacred Shield is a powerful mitigation tool that should be kept up on the main tank at all times , and can be made even more powerful by speccing for Divine Guardian in the Protection talent tree . In addition to the damage absorption effect , Sacred Shield is especially useful for improving the performance of Flash of Light . Sacred Shield allows the paladin to keep a healing - over - time ( HoT ) effect on the main tank by occasionally casting Flash of Light on the shielded target . It also gives the paladin a 50 % bonus to Flash of Light ' s critical strike chance , as long as the shielded target is continually taking damage . This crit bonus is often enough to ensure a near - perfect critical strike rating for Flash of Light . Holy paladins lack many of the raid healing abilities of other healing classes , such as the ability to have healing - over - time ( HoT ) effects on multiple targets simultaneously or the ability to react quickly to raid damage with multiple " burst heals " . In spite of these shortcomings , well - geared holy paladins can serve adequately as raid healers , if absolutely necessary , either by reacting quickly to raid damage with Flash of Light , or by preemptively spamming Holy Light on clusters of raid members . The splash effect from Glyph of Holy Light contributes a significant amount of incidental healing , especially when used on raid members who are clustered together , such as melee DPS . In emergency situations , holy paladins can also rely on Holy Shock , Hand of Protection , Hand of Salvation , Divine Guardian ( if specced for it ) , Lay on Hands , and instant Flash of Light procs from the Infusion of Light talent . Holy talents and builds . The Holy talent tree is very powerful and makes the paladin a very strong healer ; Light ' s Grace allows you to quick - fire Holy Light heals for larger burst healing effectiveness , and Holy Guidance will increase your overall spell damage and healing based upon your current intellect . There is relatively little flexibility in choosing Holy tree talents , as most are either obviously useful or strictly limited to PvP . The main decision to make is between Retribution or Protection for the off - tree . The retribution tree offers extra critical strike chance , faster run speed , and a mana cost reduction on instant - cast heals ( primarily , Holy Shock ) , while the protection tree gives flat boosts to healing through Divinity and Improved Devotion Aura . The protection tree also offers Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian , which significantly improve the effectiveness of Sacred Shield and give the paladin a very useful raid - wide damage reduction ability . Generally , the retribution tree is recommended for new holy paladins in lower levels of gear , while the protection tree is better suited to experienced raiders with higher gear levels . Holy Light builds versus Flash of Light builds . There are two broad schools of thought on paladin healing at level 80 : take a very powerful heal ( Holy Light ) and focus on being able to cast it for sustained periods without running out of mana , or take a very efficient heal ( Flash of Light ) and focus on making it more powerful . Most paladins opt for the Holy Light strategy , especially at higher gear levels when mana is no longer difficult to manage and larger heals are required to keep tanks alive . Holy Light builds will want to gem for intellect , use Glyph of Seal of Wisdom , and use the humble ( at just 15 Heroism emblems ) . Once the paladin can comfortably spam Holy Light for the entire duration of long boss fights , haste also becomes desirable . Flash of Light builds will gem for spellpower , use Glyph of Seal of Light , and use a PvP libram like . Haste may also be useful at lower gear levels , but well - geared paladins will eventually be able to cast Flash of Light faster than the Global Cooldown and will no longer benefit from haste . It is important to note that even though a paladin is typically built to maximize one spell or the other , they should still expect to use both spells , when appropriate . Gear . Holy paladin healers benefit most from gear with spellpower , intellect , critical strike rating , haste rating , and mp5 . Stamina and armor are also good to have for better survivability . Paladins use a one - handed weapon ( mace or sword ) and a shield with good healing stats . Some prefer a non - shield off - hand item with good healing stats ( although keep in mind that shields can be enchanted and off - hands cannot ) . Paladin healers can use all types of armor ( cloth , leather , mail or plate ) . While it is generally best to use plate when possible , for the extra armor and therefore survivability it provides , you should not neglect lower armor classes with better healing stats . Intellect is by far the strongest stat for mana regeneration . It boosts initial mana , mana recovered through Divine Plea and Replenishment ( as well as Arcane Torrent , for blood elves ) , and also increases critical strike chance and thus mana returned through Illumination . With 5 / 5 points in Holy Guidance it also increases your spell power by 2 points for every 10 intellect . Another stat paladins will have to choose between on some gear is haste or crit . Both are highly beneficial to holy paladins . Based on talent setup some paladins are able to sacrifice crit gear for haste . It comes down to if you would rather the heal to hit hard or hit faster . Unlike other healing classes , spirit is not an important stat for paladins . Because paladins lack healing - over - time effects , instant cast heals , and " clearcasting " or during - casting passive regeneration talents , most paladin healers will not be outside of the " 5 second rule " for any significant periods of most fights and spirit does not provide meaningful regeneration for them . Furthermore , spirit gives paladins no side bonuses that some priests and druids have such as a bonus to healing ; instead , Paladins get that bonus from intellect . The other stat commonly found on caster gear that paladins do not need is hit rating . Thought not absolutely useless ( because paladins will Judge enemies occasionally to proc Judgements of the Pure ) , gear with hit should be left to offensive casters , since it does not benefit heals at all . Of course , an item may still be an upgrade in spite of the fact that is has hit , and if there are no offensive casters interested in the item , it may be worth taking . Gear Enhancement . A paladin ' s primary stats for healing are spell power , intellect , crit rating , and haste rating . Spell power will increase the amount healed by every healing spell you cast . Intellect provides more mana as well as increasing your critical effect chance , and having high intellect ( and therefore more mana ) also makes Divine Plea more effective . Crit rating also increases your critical effect chance , which increases the average amount healed and also restores mana ( through Illumination ) . The enhancements listed below are generally considered the best available for high level holy paladins : Head Shoulders Back Chest Wrist Hands Waist Legs Feet Finger Main Hand Off Hand Most of the expensive enchantments have a slightly weaker version available at a much lower price . For example , typically costs 200 - 300g , while costs about 30g . Gems . With all the benefits of intellect it makes intellect gems ideal . You will see most end game raiding paladins socket all of their gear with the Brilliant King ' s Amber reguardless of socket color , except for one to meet the Meta Gem Requirement . PvE * Requires 1 Red gem , 1 Yellow gem , 1 Blue gem Glyphs . Paladins focusing on Holy Light will want and . There is some flexibility on the third glyph . saves global cooldown s from having to be used to refresh that spell , as well as a significant amount of mana over the course of a long fight . effectively turns Lay on Hands into a super - mana potion when self - cast . Flash of Light paladins will use , , and another major glyph of their choice ( often to help compensate for Flash of Light ' s low output ) . The only minor glyph relevant to paladin healing is .