Hello guys,
I am by no mean an exceptional player in PvP. I believe I can handle my own and that I may have some decent tips for new players or new paladins. The toolkit of Paladins is quite versatile and complete. You have a lot of option on your hand, but you also rely a lot on consumable usage if you want to have a real impact in the game. This guide will be divided in 8 sections.
- Spec
- Healing
- DPS
- Utility spell
- Consumables
- Trinkets
- Macros
- Conclusion
Before starting the guide, I will give my stat priority as far as PvP goes. Paladin are not meant to be cloth wearer to maximize their healing output in PvP. You should be using plate gear. As you will come to understand later, mitigating damage is often much better than healing the damage.
Plate > Mail > Leather > Cloth.
The important stats for a Holy Paladin are : Stamina (HP), Intellect (Mana+Crit), Healing Power/Spell Damage (depending on your playstyle), Spell Crit (Mana return on crit from Flash of Light and Holy Light). Depending on your playstyle, you may prefer Spell Damage over Healing Power.
Stamina > Intellect > Healing Power/Spell Damage > Crit
Especially during P6 where the damage is very high, I highly recommand going for as much stamina as possible. Be careful, ALL of your piece should have Healing Power/Spell Damage on it. I just highly suggest you to favorise the piece with the most stamina on it. Here is an exemple :
Peacekeeper Gloves : 482 armor, 12 intellect, 7 stamina, 59 healing and 4 mp5.
Gloves of the Redeemed Prophecy : 529 armor, 20 intellect, 20 stamina, 37 healing and 12 strength.
Because of the additionnal stamina from the Gloves of Redeemed Prophecy, I believe they are stronger in PvP. I would use them over Peacekeeper Gloves.
*** The more aggressive version of Holy Paladin will make better use of T2 piece and T2.5 because they increase both healing and spell damage while having good stats on them. You will do more DPS, but your healing isn’t going to be as solid.
*** The more passive version of Holy Paladin will make better use of T3 piece because they increase healing by a lot, while giving a lot of utility (extra buff, lower Lay on Hand CD, heal on Cleanse). You will do more healing, but your DPS isn’t going to be as solid.
Both version are just as good. They are very different from eachother. Make sure you gear accordingly to how you want to play. Shockadin is going to be a lot stronger in Burning Crusader (if it happens) because of the reduce CD on Holy shock.
1. SPEC
There is a lot of way to play Paladin, and there is not a better or a worst spec in PvP. Here are some talents that I consider mandatory :
- Unyielding Faith - 2/2 - 10% chance to resist fear and disorient.
- Divine Favor - 1/1 - 100% crit on your next spell.
- Blessing of Kings - 1/1 - 10% stats buff.
- Guardian’s Favor - 2/2 - reduce BoP CD by 120s and increase Freedom duration by 6s.
- Improved Concentration Aura - 3/3 - increase effect of Concentration Aura by 15% and 15% chance to resist silence and interrupt.
I personnally cannot play without Holy Shock because it’s pretty good as on “oh-i-need-some-heal-button” if you have the following macro :
/use Combat Health Potion
/cast Divine Favor
/cast (target=self) Holy Shock
If there is no Mortal Strike or Wound Poison on you, it should instantly heal for roughly 2200 if you have decent gear. If you had Major Recombobulator in there, you talking about instantly healing for upwards of 4000.
2. HEALING
You do not have 20 options as far as healing goes :
- Lay on Hand - 28 mins CD if talented and 4/9 T3
- Flash of Light
- Holy Light
- Holy Shock
- Major Recombobulator (Eng Trinket, 5 mins CD, 10 charges, scales with Healing Power)
- Cleanse if 8/9 T3
You should mostly be using Flash of Light, but when the damage is really intense and you can afford spending the mana and you do not risk being interrupted, Holy Light is going to provide more HPS. If you have the trinket from BWL, Scrolls of Binding Light, it will reduce your Holy Light casting speed to 1,88 second. That is some very serious HPS and you should be able to keep a lot of people up during the opening clash of any BG or wPvP. The raw healing output of Paladin isn’t the best in the game. If you only use your healing spell, you will find yourself struggling a lot to keep your partners topped off. It’s important to understand and maximize the rest of the toolkit.
Do not be shy using your Lay on Hand if it can save the target. You might want to be careful and make sure you are not wasting. What’s the point of wasting a 28 mins to 60 mins long CD if you are throwing it in a 2v10 situation ? Be intelligent about your CD usage.
With Spell Batching it’s very hard to sucessfully juke an ennemy player. The action of juking consist in stopping your cast before it reach the end to bait the interrupt, allowing you to freely cast without the risk of being locked out of Holy School.
3. DPS
An other upside of the Paladin is it’s ability to help secure kills in the mist of a fight. We have a few damaging abilities that can actively help securing a kill.
- Holy Shock : instant cast, short range. If you use Zandalarian Heo Charm, you can have some sexy crits. Depending on the way you want to play (T2 for more Spell Power or T3 for more healing), you can actually have decent burst output.
NOTE: Holy Shock can be useful to stop people from drinking, capping flag, stealthing, etc. It’s a disruptive ability for ennemy player.
- Judgment : instant cast, requires you to have a seal active. Seal of Righteousness is the one who will give you the most damage, except if you specced into Seal of Command (which I don’t really recommand).
- Consecration : AoE damage, heavy mana cost. I make sure to have the rank 1 spell keybound, which allow me to use it when I see a rogue or a druid stealthing just to avoid them opening on me. If I’m pushing in for the kill, I will use the highest rank available + judgment + holy shock + Hammer of Wrath
- Hammer of Wrath : execute. It’s non an instant-ability, but it’s actually very good damage if you can find them to do it. Again, our healing output isn’t the highest, so it’s a good idea to remove a threat / healer from the fight instead of just healing through the damage.
- Goblin Sapper Charge : it is not a Paladin ability, it’s an Engineering consumable, but if you add it in the mix of your damaging abilities, you can actually do your fair share of damage. Holy Shock + Judgment + Consecration + Sapper + Hammer of Wrath is most likely going to secure the kill on the target.
4. UTILITY
- Blessing of Sacrifice : one of the most broken ability in the game. It doesn’t have a CD. It’s a notable damage reduction vs melee for your partners (transfer 55 dmg per attack to you). Over the course of an entire fight, it can mitigate a very important amount of damage. It also makes you nearly immune to half the CC in the game. If a rogue blind you while you have a target with Blessing of Sacrifice taking damage ? The 55 damage from it will brake blind. The same logic apply to hunter trap, mage polymorph, etc. This should be kept on a melee in every single team fight.
NOTE : Using R1 Blessing of Sacrifice will provide less mitigation but will still make you immune to crowd control. Be careful, Blessing of Sacrifice will keep you in combat if your target is taking damage, so it can be harder/longer to flee/move from a fight if you want to go defend an other node while you have Blessing of Sacrifice active.
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Blessing of Freedom : 16 seconds immunity to slow and snare. You should be using it on CD. It’s situational on who you should use it on. Sometimes it’s better to use it on yourself so you get can get away from ennemy players, sometimes you should give it the warrior sitting on the mage, etc. It’s all about reading what is going on and giving it to who is going to benefit the most out of it. It can also be pretty solid to freedom a hunter trying to kite a warrior.
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Blessing of Protection : this is arguably the spell that I see most Paladin struggle to use correctly. As I said, our actual healing isn’t the best, we do have a lot of mitigation though. BoP can remove stuns, physical fear, sap and physical disorient effect. This mean, you can actively BoP yourself out of a stun, or a teamate. A mage blinked and is eating a full kidney shot ? You might consider BoP’ing him to make sure he stops taking dmg and he can go back to CC’ing / damaging other player. If there is one advice I can give you : USE IT. If you lose a team fight and BoP is on CD… If there was a physical damage dealer on the other team and you had a shot at winning the team fight, BoP could’ve given you the edge. I prefer to use it pro-actively (before a target is taking heavy damage) instead of reactively (when a target is already very low) because it doesn’t make them immune to magic damage. That means, you could BoP a Priest from 3 warriors and 1 rogue, but it could die from a frostbolt.
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Cleanse : remove 1 poison, 1 disease and 1 magical effect from the target. You should be using this ability very often in a team fight. Again, with Priest, we are the only magic dispeller on alliance side. It’s our job to make sure the rogue are not rooted, the healers are not sitting a polymorph, etc. Sometimes, making sure the warrior can execute the target even if he is at 20% health is a better move than healing him while he cannot hit the target. Again, it’s an highly situational ability but if you are able to actively support your teamate, you are giving yourself a better shot at winning.
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Divine Shield : same logic as BoP, you should use it more often than not using it. I often try and combo it with Scrolls of Binding Light which basically makes my entire team unkillable for 12 seconds. You can use this ability to give you breathing room to be able to actively dispel, heal and freedom your partners, you can also use this ability as a defensive CD (breaking CC, surviving, cancelling swaps on you). I see a lot of Paladin holding on this ability. My recommendation : USE IT.
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Concentration Aura : best aura. Use it. 99,9% of the time. If you plan on casting and you might get interrupted or you might take damage…Use it.
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Devotion Aura : this aura is highly situational but there are a few situation where it can be useful. If you cannot afford to cast and there are melees on you, it will slighly reduce the damage you take. It’s probably not going to make a major difference, but it might give you a shot at living. The same can be said for Frost,Fire and Shadow Resist Aura. Sometimes, they will be useful but it is highly situational.
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Buff (BoK, BoL, BoW, BoM) : make sure you buff people, at least for the first fight. There is no excuse. It’s part of your toolkit and I can promise you that giving Blessing of Kings to everyone will actually make a huge difference. If you don’t have Symbol of Kings, you better give 5 min buff to everyone.
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Hammer of Justice : 6 seconds stun. Instant. It’s very good. Use it to go aggressive on healer when your team is going for the kill or to peel yourself or your teamates. Should be used more often than not. Do not waste. Be careful of DRs (dimishing returns). Do not chain it after Cheap Shot + Kidney Shot from a rogue except if it’s 100% kill.
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Righteous Fury : it’s nearly useless in PvP but it can be useful for one thing : preventing more important buff to be dispelled. If you plan on running the flag, you should put Righteous Fury on yourself. It will reduce the chance of your FAP / Swiftness Pot / Rocket Boots / Freedom to be dispelled.
5. CONSUMABLES
- Free Action Potion : immune to slow, snare and stun for 30 seconds. Very good combo with speed pot effect (Skull, Rocket Boots, Nifty Stopwatch).
- Limited Invulnerability Potion : 5 seconds immunity to melee. Mixed with Divine Shield, it’s a 17 seconds immunity to physcal attack. Crazy when you think about it.
- Swiftness Potion : mouvement speed bost. Nice combo with freedom or divine shield to get away from a losing fight or to catch up someone.
- Iron Grenade (Eng) : stun that breaks on damage. Very useful. You can use it while moving. Good to harass healer or casters during team fight. You can also peel for your teamates using it.
- Rocket Boots (Eng) : good speed pots. It’s a good combo with FAP or Freedom in WSG when you are carrying flag.
- Rocket Helm (Eng) : good mouvement and CC. Very useful if you are flag carrying.
- Invisibility Potion : occassionnally useful to sneak up on EFC in WSG or in AB to ninja a node.
- Magic Dust : 30 seconds CC. It’s a charm effect. Not so useful against Undead because of Will of the Forsaken, but very strong otherwise.
- Skull of Impending Doom (quest reward, if you have to FC in a WSG or you are stuck moving alone from a base to an other in AB against a Mage or if you are defending a node alone in AB, etc)
- Clutch of Foresight (Strath Undead) : 10 sec interrupt. You can only carry one of those, but if you want to go all sweaty, that’s the consum you want.
- Goblin Sapper Charge : AoE damage, decent burst if you combo it your damaging abilities. It’s strong to help secure kills.
- Brilliant Wizard Oil : weapon oil. Increase healing and spell damage by 36 while giving 1% crit for 30 mins. It last even if you die. Roughly 25g for 5 charges which means 5g / charge. If you can afford it, you should be using it!
- Restorative Potion : remove 1 curse every 5 seconds for 30 seconds. It’s very good because that’s our only way to deal with Curse of Tongue from Warlocks (which is really our bane). It uses a potion CD so be careful when using it, but if nobody is decursing you … It’s a nice consum to have. It’s also good when stuck in 1v1 scenario with Mage. Why ? Because Polymorph is considered as a curse, so it will remove it.
6. TRINKETS
There is an absurd amount of very strong trinket available to Paladin, I will cover the most important one. That being said, I may differ from a lot of PvPer in this, but I do not use the PvP Trinket (remove CC effect) in WoW Classic on my Paladin because we already have an absurd amount of way to avoid CC between BoP, Blessing of Sacrifice and Bubble.
- Scrolls of Binding Light : increase casting speed by 33% for 20s. It’s a 5 mins CD so make sure you switch it with an other trinket when it’s on cooldown. This is your “big healing CD”. You should be using it in the first fight of pretty much every-single-battleground. It’s going to make a major difference. It drops in Blackwing Lair.
- Zandalarian Hero Charm : very versatile trinket because it increase your spell power and your healing power. You can use it as offensive CD to increase your damage output in your burst rotation when securing kill or you can use it as an healing CD to increase your healing output. It’s going to be situational, but it’s a very strong trinket on a 2 mins CD. Make sure to switch it when it’s on cooldown.
- Nifty Stopwatch : 50% mouvement speed, 30 mins CD. It’s a long CD, but it’s going to be very helpful in WSG. If you pug a lot, you will quickly realize that you need tools to be able to carry the flag by yourself. Nifty is one of those.
- Major Recombobulator : healing + dispel polymorph effect (you cannot use it when poly’d sadly). It scales with spellpower. It’s a very strong healing because it’s pretty much a 1500-1800 healing when you have a decent amount of +healing. I usually use Major Recombobulator + Nifty Stopwatch as trinket when I go for the Flag in WSG. It allows me to use a Free Action Potion, use Rocket Boots and run away. If I get dispelled, I can pop Nifty Stopwatch as an other mouvement speed increase. Major Recombobulator will allow me to get a very good heal on myself without requiring me to stop and cast.
There is plenty of other strong trinket like Eye of the Dead, Scarab Brooch, Tidal Charm, etc. The point is : your trinket should bring a plus value. If you want raw healing, Rejuvenation Gem is a very good idea. If you want to be more aggressive and play more as a Shockadin, it may not be the best trinket. Your trinket should fit your playstyle.
7. MACROS
Paladin being a versatile healer, there are a few macros that I really enjoy and are big quality of life change.
- Harm/noharm macros :
#showtooltip
/cast [noharm] Holy Light
/cast [harm] Judgement
When targeting an ennemy player, it will cast judgement. When targeting a friendly player, it will cast Holy Light. You keybind is now effectively two different keybinds. It’s crazy useful for many healers that want to go offensive as well without ending up having 1082 different keybinds.
- Self-cast heal/utility spell
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast [nomod,target=target] Blessing of Protection
/cast [mod:shift,target=Beliwhoop] Blessing of Protection
For every single of my utility / healing (Holy Light, BoP, Flash of Light, Freedom, Cleanse, Lay on Hands, etc) the shift modifier cast it on myself. It allow me to swiftly heal myself and my target without worrying about changing my target. Sadly, I haven’t found how to “mix” self cast and noharm/harm macros all in one. It ends up taking two different macros (3 would be Holy Light + Judgement and Shift-3 would be Holy Light on myself).
- Emergency Heal
/cast Divine Favor
/cast [target=Beliwhoop] Holy Shock
/cast Combat Healing Potion
/cast Major Recombobulator
/cast Major Healthstone
/cast The Burrower’s Shell
This is honestly of my favorite macros. Only Holy Shock is on the global cooldown, so all the event will occur in a single click. It requires you to equip two specific trinkets (Recombobulator - ENG and Shell - AQ40) and to carry Healthstone + Healing Pot. If my Nifty Stopwatch is on CD and I plan on carrying flags, I will switch to the two trinkets in the macro. Even with a Mortal Strike effect on you, it’s going to at least heal for 80% of your health. It’s insanely good.
- Stop casting macros with Instant Cast
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast [nomod,target=target] Holy Shock
/cast [mod:shift,target=Beliwhoop] Holy Shock
Sometimes you are casting and you see a target at low health and you could help secure the kill ? Instead of moving, than pressing the keybind, using this macro will instantly cancel your cast and cast the mentionned spell on your target. I like the versatility of it. It also allow you to not waste time when you are juking. If you cast, move, cast, move, cast you are literally silencing yourself because you are never casting any spell. Cast into Holy Shock, cast into Freedom, etc. means while you are trying to fakecast/juke the interrupt from the ennemy player, you remain active.
8. CONCLUSION
This guide is obviously not perfect and/or complete. It’s just some general tips for new and upcoming Holy Paladin players in Classic. The objective was to give an overview of the versatile and complete toolkit of Paladin in Classic. You must understand that Holy Paladin in PvP differ from Holy Paladin in PvE, we are not supposed to only be healing.
As far as my own playstyle goes, I am mostly the player who prefer having most +healing instead of +spell damage, but both are strong option. I enjoy sitting in the back of the fight, and making sure my teamates aren’t CC’d by actively using Cleanse, BoP and Freedom to give them the highest possible uptime on ennemy players. That being said, I will usually always have some Magic Dust, Goblin Sapper Charge and Iron Grenade on me to help on crowd controlling important players (Healers, Ele Shaman mostly) to help my team securing kills. Whenever I say an ennemy player overextending, I will most likely stun him, switch to a 2Hander and use my burst rotation on him (Seal - AA - Judgment - Consecration - AA - Holy Shock - Goblin Sapper Charge - Hammer of Warth).
If you have any suggestion or comments, feel free to let me know. Excuse me for the not-so-perfect-english, it is not my mother tongue 
