Holy Paladin

It’s very important (and sometimes the most important) when evaluating logs to look at different things for different classes. Not every class has the same toolkit or heal the same.

Here’s what I look for when evaluating a holy paladin:

Active Time Spent Healing

First, open the Healing Done screen by choosing your fight > Healing Done.

 

See that Active Time column on the right? This should be as near 100% as possible, no less than 90%. You should never stop casting! Of course, sometimes you have to move but you can easily line up a HS > WoG > HS > WoG on the move if needed. When your asignment isn’t taking massive damage, spam the raid with Holy Light. It’s cheap, and you can cast it as filler.  Mix in Holy Shock when off cd, and WoG, and you’re putting out some serious healing with out much mana cost and most of all you are a mobile powerhouse!

Don’t forget every heal also puts a mini bubble on the target that adds up too!

One thing to note, if the healer dies during the encounter, you’ll see the Active Time % drop, that’s why the first paladin is at 71.1%.

Mana is Sexy

A healer without any mana is a healer who can’t heal. This is the number one cause of low throughput. It’s easy to spot and easy to fix though, here’s how.

Remember that spell we have.. Judgement? yeah that! With Seal of Insight it returns a massive amount of mana (gross 15%, net approx 8%) through a fight and should be used as close to cooldown as possible. Many new paladins don’t remember that it has a 8 second cooldown!

Here’s how you can tell, let’s look at 2 paladins.  First look at Fight > Player > Buffs Cast. You’ll see Power Gains number there from Seal of Insight. Then look at Damage by Spell to see how many times the player judged. Check the length of the fight, and divide the number of Judgements to see how often. Like so:

This paladin probably had a huge mana problem, I actually remember hearing him say he was oom. This is why! ONE judgement per nearly 1 minute, he only gained a mere 36k mana over the 8 minute fight. If he judged near cooldown, 6 seconds, he’d have this much:

That’s DOUBLE the mana return from using judgement a heck of a lot more. And that equals a shit load more of throughput to throw out some big heals and aoe healing.

Please Use Power Auras!

Some people hate addons, but I really can’t recommend Power Auras enough especially to manage your judgement and its cooldown. I use this custom aura, it shows a reverse ticker under my character’s feet that shows the cooldown left on Judgement.

And the second it comes off of cooldown, I set it to a nice and friendly audible “ping” sound. This means I don’t even have to look at the icon to see if it’s off cooldown. I hear the ping,  I judge as soon as I can.

You can import my Power Aura here:

Version:4.22; InvertAuraBelow:12; b:0.9686; anim1:2; g:0.3373; icon:Spell_Holy_RighteousFury; buffname:Judgement; bufftype:15; texture:21; sound:23; combat:true; size:0.35; y:-121; texmode:1; timer.h:1.5; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.Relative:CENTER

Spell usage and over-healing

If you look at Healing by Spell for a player, these should be the top heals from a holy paladin:

1. Beacon of Light - should always be in the top 3
2. Divine Light - higher on big tank dmg fights (and higher gear ilevels)
3. Holy Light - higher on fights where you spam the raid more
4. Holy Radiance - higher in aoe fights like majordomo

I bet you’re wondering about the other heals!

Overhealing is a strange beast, some fights make it easier to have a lot of overheal – spamming the raid with holy lights without much damage incoming. You’ll also see overheal with holy paladins due to Beacon of Light heals. Druids, for example, tend to have lots of overheal as hots still tick when the person is full hp. Disc priests tend to have the least overheal due to the nature of bubble / damage mitigation.

Of note: if a holy paladin is running oom constantly, judging on cooldown, using DP, but still running oom – maybe check overheal to see if the raider is maybe spamming a little too much Divine Light vs Holy Lights.

Use Those Cooldowns Young Padawon

Now let’s talk Cooldowns. A good paladin will make use of all of their cooldowns, and they have tons! For cooldown usage, click on Buffs Cast then click on the # next to each of the buffs to see the chart.

You want to look at the following in detail: Beacon of Light, Judgements of the Pure, Avenging Wrath, Divine Favor, Aura Mastery, Divine Protection, Divine Plea… just to name a few.

See all the gaps marked in both Beacon and Judgements of the Pure.. bad bad bad! Both should be near 100%.

• Beacon of Light - this should have 100% uptime, in the case above it fell off for more than 1 minute. Setting up your buff icons to show you what you need to see instead of all buffs on your tank, will help to watch things like this. Or again, a power aura
• Judgements of the Pure - this is a 15% haste buff and it should never drop off. See above it wasn’t even cast until 1 minute into the fight, that also means he wasn’t judging for mana. Want to be sure? Set up the Power Aura above to let you know when to judge again. This should never fall off.
• Avenging Wrath  -this should be used often, and EARLY on the fight, so you can use it again soon. It’s your own personal BLOOD LUST!  In most encounters you should see it a few times on the logs! In the above case, it was casted only once. In an 8 minute fight, you can cast it 4 TIMES! That’s a hell of a lot more healing (20% every 2 minutes).  Time your Avenging Wrath to use with Holy Radiance on a group up aoe phase, or with big tank damage incoming.
• Divine Favor - this should be used often, and EARLY on the fight, so you can use it again soon. In most encounters you should see it a few times! In the above case, it was casted only once. In an 8 minute fight, you can cast it 2 TIMES!  To be sure you’re making use of it, either macro it with your Divine Light or time it to use with Holy Radiance on a group up aoe phase, or with big tank damage incoming.
• Divine Protection - this should be used on cooldown (freaking 40 seconds!) as your own personal mitigation with the Glyph of Divine Protection. Especially on the above example, this ragnaros attempt it should be used 6 times at least, not 1. Especially useful on the traps damage in p1, group up phase with seeds in p2, etc.)
• Divine Plea - also… used only 1 time. Throughput is massively increased when this sort of mana regen tool is used at the right time. It could have been used 4 times (25k mana each) that’s a lot more healing.
• Big Kings Dude - don’t forget to use your Kingsy Dude, most of the time once and near the end of the fight or a burn AOE phase. Also, use him when stacked up and throw out 5 DLs for maximum hps. He’ll duplicate those heals and also splash 10% to everyone nearby.
• Bubble - don’t forget this one, you have it, use it to keep yourself alive and heal heal heal all the things.

Missing enirely from this list is:

• Hand of Sacrifice - this is a huge lifesaver and should be used regularly on your tank. Especially with its low cooldown, holy paladins can use it when hitting Divine Plea, or when moving or just to reduce tank damage and healing needs. Definitely should have seen it on the logs.

Here’s another example sent in by a reader, this paladin didn’t even use the majority of his/her cooldowns available to help the raid and his/her healing. In evaluating, this is what I saw in 15 second scan:

All of the above things do add up, and are useful in reminding yourself and your other healers what can be done better. No one is perfect, and some fights have been nerfed so bad that cooldowns aren’t even needed. However, on progression fights, logs will help you to remember what you can do to be a better paladin.

Use that toolkit!