My Cataclysm 4.3.4 Holy Paladin Build [PVE]

     Hi there! Today I am going to share by Holy Paladin build in which I play in Molten WoW server. This is based on the play style in the said server so this guide might not apply for some. :)

I. Talent Build

     

     For you who might not know what PVE is, PVE is Player vs. Environment ( a.k.a. Player vs. Monster, or Player vs. NPC) which basically means the experience of a player fighting against monsters in a gaming world. This also means that the build that I am going to share is focused on that encounters, which is for dungeons and raiding.

    The image above is my Holy Paladin, Anessia. I like playing support roles and basically, Holy Paladin is a support build. I am currently using 31/5/5 talent build. I will now be discussing each and every talent I have selected and why do I chose them.

Holy

• Protector of the Innocent 3/3 - Casting a targeted healing spell on any target except yourself will heal you for 3490. The self heal seems too low but 3.4k heal is quite helpful.
• Judgements of the Pure 3/3 - Your judgement increases your casting and melee haste by 9% and increases your mana regen by 30% of your Spirit while in combat. We're really after that haste and combat mana regeneration.
• Clarity of Purpose 3/3 - Reduces the casting time of Holy Light, Divine Light and Holy Radiance by 0.5 sec. This is important because you need to cast your healing spells as fast as you can.
• Last Word 1/2 - Increases your Word of Glory's critical chance to targets with 35% health or less by 30%. Two (2) talent points would increase its critical chance to 60% but it seems overkill to me. Besides, 30% additional critical chance is high enough for a healer.
• Divine Favor 1/1 - It increases your spell haste and spell critical chance by 20% once activated. A good cooldown spell. A must get talent point. 
• Infusion of Light 2/2 - Increases the critical chance of your Holy Shock by 10% and your Holy Shock critical strikes reduces the casting time of your Flash of Light, Holy Light, Divine Light or Holy Radiance by 1.5 sec. Also a must get talent since Holy Shock is one of our efficient healing spells.
• Daybreak 2/2 - Gives Flash of Light, Holy Light and Divine Light a 20% to make your next Holy Shock not trigger its cooldown within 12 sec. This talent kind of syncs with Infusion of Light so we'd love to max this one out.
• Enlightened Judgements 1/2 - Grants you hit rating equivalent to 50% of your Spirit, increases the range of your judgement by 5 yards and your judgement heals you for 2234. One point is enough since we won't be needing that much hit rating.
• Beacon of Light 1/1 - A buff spell that makes the affected ally receive 50% healing from Word of Glory, Flash of Light, Holy Shock and Divine Light, and 100% from Holy Light even if that ally is not your main target. A must get spell since it allows you to heal two units at the same time.
• Speed of Light 3/3 - Grants 3% haste and your Divine Shield gives you 60% mspd for 4 sec when activated. It's the haste we're after but that mspd bonus is handy in some situations.
• Sacred Cleansing 1/1 - Allows Cleanse to also dispel a Magic effect. This is a very important talent since there are loads of monsters and boss encounters that gives magical debuffs.
• Conviction 3/3 - Gives you a 3% increased damage and healing after landing a critical hit which also stacks up to 3 times. That's a total of 9% bonus healing for us.
• Aura Mastery 1/1 - Once activated, it gives improved effects to your aura. This is kind of a PVP talent but it is useful in some occasions.
• Paragon of Virtue 2/2 - Reduces the cooldown of Divine Protection by 30 sec, Hand of Sacrifice by 30 sec and Avenging Wrath by 60 sec. A must get talent since it is reducing the cooldown of Avenging Wrath.
• Tower of Radiance 3/3 - Healing the Beacon of Light unit with Divine Light or Flash of Light gives you a 100% chance of gaining a Holy Power and your Holy Radiance always generates Holy Power. Nuff said.
• Blessed Life 1/2 - Gives you a 50% chance to gain Holy Power whenever you take direct damage.
• Seriously!? No Light of Dawn?? OMG NAB! - LOL! Hell no! My build is not for AoE healing but single (up to maximum of 2) direct healing that's why I don't have Light of Dawn. But just in case you want to take it, just omit Blessed Life or don't max out Tower of Radiance and get Light of Dawn. :)

Protection

• Divinity 3/3 - Increases healing done and received by 6%. Additional 6% healing is a big boost.
• Eternal Glory 2/2 - Your Word of Glory has a 30% chance not to consume Holy Power. This is important to my build since I don't have Light of Dawn and Word of Glory is my holy power healing spell. You may choose to skip this talent if you have selected Light of Dawn.

Retribution

• Crusade 3/3 - Increases Holy Shock's healing and damage by 30% and Holy Light heals for an additional 300% after killing an enemy that yields experience or honor for 15 sec. Nuff said.
• Improved Judgement 2/2- Increases the range of Judgement by 20 yards. This is also important and syncs with Judgements of the Pure.

II. Glyphs

     Glyphs are additional passive traits that also improves your skill effects. You can equip at most 3 Prime Glyphs, 3 Major Glyphs, and 3 Minor Glyphs. Listed below are essential glyphs to a Holy Paladin:

Prime

• Glyph of Divine Favor
• Glyph of Seal of Insight
• Glyph of Word of Glory
• Glyph of Holy Shock

Major

• Glyph of Beacon of Light
• Glyph of Divine Plea
• Glyph of Divinity
• Glyph of Lay on Hands
• Glyph of Light of Dawn
• Glyph of Cleansing

Minor

• Glyph of Blessing of Kings
• Glyph of Blessing of Might
• Glyph of Insight

III. Stat Priority

     Stat building a Holy Paladin is a little bit complicated. Why? You have to balance your spell power and mana regeneration well to become effective. Also, you have to have enough haste rating in order to cast as fast as possible your healing spells.

Intellect

     

     Intellect is the most important stat for a Holy Paladin. Intellect increases spell power, mana, slightly increases spell critical and also slightly increases mana regeneration. Having high Intellect means you'll have enough mana to cast good healing spells for your raid or party group.

Spirit

     Spirit is our second priority since its major role is to increase our mana regeneration. We need to have enough Spirit in order to last long enough in a long boss encounter. More mana regeneration means more healing spells you can cast through the encounter.

Haste

     Next stat is haste. Haste allows us to cast our healing spells as fast as possible. Having a fast casting time for a healer means a higher chance of survival for your raid members or party members. Increase your haste via the haste rating stat.

Critical Chance

     Critical chance is not that important for us. Although having a critical hit healing spell means a bigger amount of life healed, it is not that important than spell power or mana regen. What good is a critical heal when your spell power is low? What good is your critical heal when you can only cast 10-15 healing spells in an encounter?

Mastery Rating

     Introduced in Cataclysm, mastery rating increases the effectiveness of the Mastery Skill of every class. Each class has a different mastery for every path build. In our case, Holy Paladin, our mastery is Illuminated Healing. It gives our direct healing spell to place an absorb shield on your target for 12% of the amount healed lasting for 15 sec and each mastery point increases the absorb amount by an additional 1.50%. Though our mastery is important for the tanks that we heal, mastery rating is our least important stat. We need to focus on spell power, mana regen and haste in order to be more effective.

IV. Reforging

     We are now allowed to re-allocate the least stat that we need to an important stat through Reforging. Keep in mind our stat priority. Since we can't reforge for Intellect or spell power, Spirit will be our reforging priority. We aim to have enough mana regen. Next is haste which is needed for fast casting. Then critical strike rating in order to have huge direct healing and last is mastery rating.

Spirit > Haste > Crit > Mastery

     Reforge for Spirit in every gear that you are using and has no Spirit in it. If you feel like you have enough spirit, reforge for haste rating. Our target is to have at least 20% haste rating. Lastly reforge for critical strike rating since we'd like to have a good burst healing. Mastery rating will most likely be the stat that we will reforge in to a much more important stat since it is our least needed stat.

V. Enchantments and Gems

     Item enchanting for Holy Paladin is critical. Critical means you need to have the proper enchantments in order to be an efficient healer. We need to follow our stat priority for enchanting. Since Intellect is our top priority stat, your enchantments should give Intellect bonus. If for some reason there's no available intellect enchantment for a certain item piece, look for an enchantment that gives Spirit. If, again, for some reason there's no Spirit enchantment, look for a haste enchantment or crit enchantment.

     For gems, we will also follow our stat priority. We'll need to have an Intellect or Spirit meta gem for our meta socket. Brilliant *red gem* is our, of course, red gem. For blue, Purified *purple gem*  is what we are going to use especially when there's an intellect socket bonus. If you feel you have enough Spirit, use Brilliant *red gem* for blue sockets instead. In some cases, we'll need Quick *yellow gem* for yellow sockets to have more haste but use Brilliant *red gem* otherwise.

VI. Spells

     As a healer, we really don't need to have a rotation unlike DPS or Tank roles. What we need is to understand and learn which spell would be needed in a certain encounter to be an effective support player. I will now discuss each important spell that Holy Paladin has to offer.

Healing Spells

• Holy Light - Our bread and butter. It has an efficient mana cost and the amount healed is kind of good for its cost.
• Holy Shock - A healing spell that should be used every time its off its cooldown. Instant cast with a very good amount of healing for its mana cost.
• Divine Light - A large heal that is good for periods of heavy damage. This should be only used when a player is at 70% or less HP.
• Holy Radiance -  A group heal that heals over time. This has a high mana cost so use this only when the group is receiving an AoE damage.
• Word of Glory - A very efficient heal that relies on Holy Power. It does not have any cooldown, which means this spell will be almost spammable when you have holy power. Keep in mind that it's much more effective when used with 3 holy powers though.
• Light of Dawn - A heal that also relies on Holy Power. It will heal up to 6 party or raid members within 30 yards frontal cone. Like Word of Glory, this has no cooldown so it will also be almost spammable. It is also more effective when you have 3 holy power.
• Lay on Hands - An emergency heal. Your panic button. Use this when a raid or party member is at 20% or less HP and when you think you can't heal your target fast enough through your other healing spells.

Support Spells

• Beacon of Light - As said above, this buff allows you to heal at most two raid or party members at once. Tanks becomes beacon of light most of the time but it can also be another player with low HP or a class that can't heal himself. For beginners, it will be better to beacon your self.
• Cleanse - Your dispelling spell. With Sacred Cleansing talent, it will almost dispel everything to your self or other party members.
• Hand of Freedom - A spell that grants immunity to movement impairing effects to your self or to a target. Use this when you or a party member is affected by slow.
• Hand of Salvation - A spell that reduces the threat of your target. This allows your tank to have enough threat and hold aggro effectively. Use this to a player/class that gives huge amount of threat. It'll most likely be a DPS role with a huge damage output.
• Hammer of Justice - A spell that stuns an enemy unit. Most of the time monsters will be immune with stun effects but it's worth the try when it landed successfully on a mob. 
• Hand of Protection - A spell that grants immunity to physical damage to a party member but prevents them from attacking. Use this only when necessary.
• Blessing or Kings - A beneficial spell that increases strength, agility, stamina and intellect by 5% to all party or raid member. Also increases all resistances by 97. Keep in mind that only one blessing per paladin can be active at a time, meaning the other paladin in your group must use Blessing of Might.
• Blessing of Might - A beneficial spell that increases melee attack power by 20%, ranged attack power by 10% and mana regen by 326. Keep in mind that only one blessing per paladin can be active at a time, meaning the other paladin in your group must use Blessing of Kings.
• Resurrection - A spell that resurrects a dead party member. Usable only when out of combat.

Other Spells

• Seal of Insight - With Glyph of Seal of Insight, this seal will increase your healing effects by 5%. This is our go-to seal.
• Judgement - A spell that unleashes a seal effect and damages an enemy unit. Since you have Judgement of the Pure, using this spell will increase your combat mana regeneration by 30% of your Spirit and will also increase your casting haste by 9%. Also, you don't need to get close to mobs or bosses when using this since you have Improved Judgement. It is important to use this skill first in every encounter.
• Concentration Aura - An aura that gives all party or raid members to lose 35% less casting or channeling time when damaged. This will be our main aura.
• Aura Mastery - This improves our aura effects temporarily. Since we will be using Concentration Aura most of the time, activating this will give us 6 sec immunity to silence or interrupt effects. This will be important in some cases.
• Divine Shield - A spell that reduces all physical damage taken by 20%. A good damage reduction spell. With the Speed of Light talent, it will also grant you a 60% mspd increase for 4 sec. Best used when you are under attack by mobs and you need to keep distance from them.
• Divine Favor - Increases your spell haste and spell critical by 20%. This is a very good cooldown spell and must be used during a critical phase of an encounter.
• Avenging Wrath - Increases your damage and healing caused by 20%. Best used with Divine Favor or other cooldown effects such as trinkets. 
• Guardian of Ancient Kings - This spell has different effect on different Paladin path build. For Holy, this spell will summon a Guardian of Ancient Kings and while active, your next 5 healing spells will cause the guardian to also heal the target for the same amount healed by your heal, and friendly units within 10 yards of your target for 10% of the amount healed. This is an epic cooldown spell for us because it helps us to heal huge amounts of damage.
• Divine Plea - A spell that regenerates 12% of mana over 9 sec but nerf down our healing by 50%. With Glyph of Divine Plea, this will regenerate 18% of mana over 9 sec. Use this only when you are low on mana.

     And that is it! I hope you liked my Holy Paladin guide. Please feel free to correct me or do tell me if ever I missed something out, or there's something wrong with this post. Nonetheless, I do hope you have learned enough on how to be a Holy Paladin. Cheers!