The Light and How to Swing It: Healing on the run
by Chase Christian 
Jul 25th 2010 at 2:00PM
Superman is faster than a speeding bullet, but even a sliver of green kryptonite can bring him to his knees. Batman may be incredibly intelligent, but a single bullet could end his career. Spider-Man's agility carries him through his endeavors, but he's crippled when his family is in danger. Every hero has a weakness. We may not have an "S" on our chests, but holy paladins aren't excluded from this flaw. We are as weak at mobile healing as we are strong at stationary healing. While standing still, we have the strength of Atlas, pillars of holy light that can hold up the world. While on the run, flailing is about the best we can do.
While many of our mobility issues are being addressed in Cataclysm, that's still out on the horizon and no help to us. We've got to figure out how to heal while moving now. The development team at Blizzard isn't going to stop making encounters that involve motion, and holy paladins need to adapt to these environments. Even if we're not the most potent healers while running, we do have a few tricks up our sleeves that can get the job done. As great as Judgement of Light may be, we still need to actually do some casting if we want everyone to stay alive.
Holy Shock: our hammer
If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Fortunately for us, we weren't hired to be carpenters; we were hired to keep the raid alive. All of our direct healing while in motion involves Holy Shock. The first step to being able to move and heal at the same time is binding Holy Shock to the right key. You need to be able to use your W-A-S-D movement keys and also push Holy Shock at the same time. In addition, having a mouseover macro available to cast Holy Shock without having to target the player will decrease your reaction time as well. If you need practice, you can just run circles around a target dummy, using Holy Shock on anyone nearby.
In Cataclysm, Holy Shock shall become more powerful than we could possibly imagine. Its healing becomes more potent and its mana cost falls through the floor. Until then, it's still pretty good, but it's not the dream heal that we'll see in a few months. If you know you'll be healing a lot while moving, pick up the Glyph of Holy Shock, which will let you use it more often. It's important to remember that Holy Shock isn't as strong as a Holy Light, and due to its cooldown, we have to use it carefully.
Say that we're running from some lasers on Halion, and the raid's green bars start dropping. You don't want to blow Holy Shock on the first schmuck to take damage, because then you're left without anything to cast when someone really needs it. Rely on your other healers to top off players who are floating around 75%, and focus on those targets that are most wounded. If it happens to be the tank who gets hit hard, you can safely Holy Shock one of those slightly hurt players and let Beacon replicate the healing to the tank. Otherwise, it's not worth your wasting only instant heal to save the rogue who's barely even hurt.
Sacred Shield: our preemptive strike
If we know that we're going to be taking a stroll during a boss fight, setting up Sacred Shield on the right target can make a serious difference. Not only can the absorption effect give us a bit of a buffer before needing to heal, we can use a Flash of Light to put the Infusion of Light HoT proc onto the target. The IoL HoT is our only HoT, so we might as well use it for what it's good for. It's not crazy-powerful like Renew or Rejuvenation, but it's enough to get the job done in a pinch. Every little bit helps while we're moving, and Blizzard doesn't balance encounters to need massive amounts of healing in motion phases for this specific reason.
While the tank is the usual target of a Sacred Shield, there are use cases where you can cast it on someone else. I personally toss it on myself during Lord Marrowgar's heroic Bone Storm attack, since I'm much more fragile than a tank during this time. If I were to get Bone Spiked, it's even more important that I take as little damage as possible, since the remaining healers are going to be stressed to keep everyone alive without assistance. The absorption effect also allows me to get off a few casts without fear of pushback as well.
Infusion of Light: our lucky break
When I'm running from a laser or some mind-controlled raid member, I hate the feeling of weakness that comes once Holy Shock's already unloaded. Unlike Bruce Springsteen, I was not born to run. That's why I love healing the familiar sound of Infusion of Light proccing from the critical Holy Shock. The little sound bite that plays when we've got an instant Flash of Light ready to roll brings a smile to my face. I go from fleeing fugitive to stalwart defender, I've got heals I can cast and nobody can stop me. When I'm sprinting to avoid the Swarming Shadows flames on Blood Queen Lana'thel, I love being able to Holy Shock whoever's lowest on life and then having an instant Flash of Light to use on myself as I'm burning.
Using Divine Favor and Holy Shock in tandem is the only way to guarantee you'll have the instant FoL available. You should have a macro that uses both spells simultaneously, and have it ready whenever you know you're going to be running. I use it for the aforementioned Swarming Shadows on BQL, and if I'm accidentally knocked back on the Blood Prince Council, as well as several other encounters. There's something to be said for stacking critical strike rating instead of MP5 (via haste/crit gear) and going with a retribution sub-specialization and maximizing the chance of IoL proccing, but it would cause you to lose out on the next technique for healing in motion.
Cooldowns: our big guns
Divine Sacrifice (in tandem with Divine Guardian) is going to be your most potent cooldown to use when you need to keep your group alive while moving. I like to also tie in Divine Shield to make sure that I'm not going to die, which is always nice. Your raid will be taking 20% less damage, and you'll absorb 30% of the damage done to your party. If you're in the tank group, that's a big deal. You'll be redirecting all of that damage to your Divine Shield, which is way more healing than you could do with a Holy Shock. Knowing when to use this combo is encounter-specific and is the sign of a good holy paladin who's thought about how to maximize effectiveness.
We also have Hand of Sacrifice and Hand of Protection available as instant-cast cooldowns to help out in heavy-damage situations. I use Hand of Protection to protect a Bone Spiked healer, and a Hand of Sacrifice on the main tank while dodging a Malleable Goo on heroic Festergut can save his life. Aura Mastery is our final CD that can save a life, especially on an encounter like BQL, when massive shadow damage is being doled out. While all of our cooldowns are great, we want to save them for the most desperate situations. Holy priests have to waste Guardian Spirit any time the tank is taking more damage than they can handle, while we can just cast Holy Light. However, we're left popping all of our CDs when moving, while priests laugh as they cast Renew and Circle of Healing. That's just the flavor of our class for now, and I'm personally fine with it. Even the most admirable hero has his flaw, and by knowing ours, we can reduce its effect to make us the best healers we can be.
The Light and How to Swing It (Holy Edition) helps holy paladins become the powerful healers we're destined to be. Learn the ropes in Holy 101. We can help you keep a tank alive, heal a raid when necessary and beat the global cooldown. Tanking is a job, DPS is a craft -- but healing is truly an art. Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jamie Jul 25th 2010 2:58PM
Nice imagery to compliment the article, but I was hoping for a Dwarven Siege Vehicle!
Finnicks Jul 25th 2010 3:14PM
Just last week I was healing ICC for the first time on my (relatively) new paladin.
We were doing Blood Princes. 3 attempts of constantly being blasted across the room by unobservant DPS during Empowered Vortex, having to skirt around existing Shock Vortexes in an effort to reach the tanks before they dropped...
...after said 3 attempts I got fed up with the lack of mobility and switched to my somewhat better geared and infinitely more mobile resto druid and we downed them in one go. >.>
uncaringbear Jul 25th 2010 7:47PM
For sure, in fights like the Blood Princes, your positional awareness is crucial as a holy paladin. You can never rely on your team mates to look out and stay away from you during Empowered Shock Vortex. I pretty much have to resort to yelling at my team mates to get the heck away from the semi circle area in front of the stairs, which is the zone we reserve exclusively for the healers to work in.
Kuro Jul 26th 2010 12:44PM
I dropped prot for Holy after FotLK hit and I was able to quickly fish up badges to fill it out -- and I've been 'stuck' with it for off spec healing 10 man ICC ever since. Princes is one of the first fights I remember doing. We had two-healed everythign up to that point but the holy preist and the resto were having trouble with tank damage.
One key point that I bring up when people yell at being out of range is that holy paladins have a long (the longest?) range direct heal at 60 yards: beacon of light.
Get knocked back? Heal self, beacon heal tank. Move beacon and holy shock heal as you're moving back into range. Then chain HoP that rogue for the rest of the night for knocking you back. Complain loudly about his damage output.
I also find that HUD map helps a lot for avoiding those vortex knock backs.
Cliffbar Jul 25th 2010 3:15PM
Quick thing about Divine Sacrifice/Guardian, the Sacrifice part is party only, while the 20% reduced damage is raid wide. If you're in the tank's group that adds up to a lot, 20% less damage and then 30% of the remaining transferred to you, but even if you aren't in the tanks group, it's still 20% less damage on them.
Chase Christian Jul 25th 2010 3:31PM
Whoops, got the two backwards, thanks!
uncaringbear Jul 25th 2010 7:52PM
I recently respecced into the Prot tree to pick up the Divine Sacrifice/Guardian abilities. I'm still fuzzy about getting these to work correctly. I understand the Sacrifice part being party-only. Is it correct that the best use is to activate Divine Sacrifice and then cancel it immediately for the Guardian effect which then provides the raid-wide 20% damage reduction? Also, I've seen some macros which purport to do this, but so far I haven't tried any that seem to work well. I would love some suggestions.
Danterius Jul 25th 2010 10:39PM
@uncaringbear
Nah, don't cancel the party-wide buff. True, 30% damage from 4 players, especially if 1 or 2 are tanks, is a lot of damage, but that's why you use it in conjunction with your beloved bubble. Personally, I pop bubble and then directly afterward Sacrifice, since the bubble lasts 12 sec and the sac 10 sec, and thus they act jointly. Both the raid-wide and the party-wide buffs are absolutely huge, and sometimes regarded as necessary for various hardmodes. This beautiful CD is the main reason that a lot of top hpallies choose to subspec into prot instead of the bounty of crit that is the ret tree. Personally, I have two holy specs, one holy/prot for "serious" raiding, and one holy/ret for dungeons and farm content.
vespers Jul 26th 2010 1:40AM
@uncaringbear
That's how you wanna use it as a tanking prot pally, when you can't afford to be taking the extra damage from your party but you wanna use it as a raid wall.
a simple cancelaura macro works.
but as holy you can pop bubble without wiping the raid, so you can use the whole thing, not just the raid wall.
brian Jul 25th 2010 3:17PM
It's telling that Lay on Hands isn't on the cooldown list. It shows just how useful it is, on average. Sure, a big heal is nice, but what's the point when two Holy Lights can just about do the same? With its cooldown, Lay on Hands is no Nature's Swiftness.
Really, the only benefit is the mana gain, and right now, even that doesn't make much of a difference with the mana efficiency most healers have.
Wipe prevention at best, really. Though, perhaps I'm just out of touch.
In any case, I hope they take another look at Lay on Hands. It could've been something really cool. Thematic to Holy, even. Maybe they could tie it to Holy Power in some way? Currently, Holy only has Word of Glory (awesome though it may be), and could use another way to spend Holy Power.
ColbyWolf Jul 25th 2010 4:08PM
Lay on hands is supposed to be a OH SHI-- Button... the button you push when you DON'T have time to cast two holy lights. You shouldn't be using lay on hands every time the cooldown is down. it's not that sort of spell... you either are using it for the mana component, or like I do, when someone is perilously low on hit points with more damage coming soon... It might only be two holy lights, but that's two holy lights in a single instant. The life you save could be your own. :)
mor8idhomogenosuicide Jul 25th 2010 11:11PM
Truthfully the main reason I use Lay on Hands is because of Improved Lay on Hands making it a fairly useful external cooldown.
May not seem like much but for a fight like Festergut where the tank takes huge physical damage, a 20% reduction can be significant.
I rarely use it as an OH SHI-- button as the poster before me does, as I said I find it more useful as a cooldown for the tank, but each to their own :)
Bain Jul 26th 2010 5:46AM
lay on hands is brilliant, i play prot mainly but lay on hands used at an opportune moment kept someone alive who would have died and thus saved my guilds 10 man lk heroic kill.
also as said above talenting into it from holy makes it a really overpowered cd to use on a tank who just seems to be taking more damage than you can handle at that moment.
toddless Jul 26th 2010 8:17AM
Or if you were a good holy pally and speced into improved LoH - then it's an extra tank cooldown as well.
I would also like to take this opportunity to say keyboard turning is pretty fail.
In the Halion fight, the only time you need to move is when the lasers are active, and then you can stand still again when they "turn off"...just make sure you are aware of where they are when you get the DBM warning that they will becoming active once more. This allows you to use Holy Light more effectively - and - if you are having issues with your tank dying whilst the orbs are active, tell them to pop a cooldown. It's what they are there for.
Moosestehpally Jul 25th 2010 5:42PM
Long time reader first time commentor. In regards to the LoH argument... i sersioulsy NEVER use that move... i really dont, I use it perhaps twice a week. And i know i sound bad for it. But to be honest with the haste you get from judgeing and what not. Your Holy Lights are gonna come out really fast. So you can just heal yourself that way without putting foreberance on yourself and not have a REAL life saver in your bubble because of the debuff.
Richbo Jul 25th 2010 8:31PM
I use LoH all the time, in fact I deliberately let raid members go to low health knowing I have this instant heal available that will put them back to near full health and with my beacon on the tank its 2 for the price of 1
The only other time I would use LoH is if another healer is going low on mana, and ill cast it on them for the small but sometimes lifesaving mana it offers.
In terms of paladin healing on the go, I have found that HL paladins have more problems with this than FoL paladins, I can easily move out of the way for a second, cast a FoL and continue due to the haste I have from my set up and use of judgements.
Holy Shock is great for instant heals and with the combined instant FoL on crit, it is a great panic button when combined with sacred shield
toddless Jul 26th 2010 8:21AM
My holy lights are on GCD because of my haste - from gear alone I have over 900, and then I have haste/crit gear for dreamwalker which puts me well over any necessary cap.
LoH should be used more as a cooldown/ oh crap button - either way, your tank should be taking minimal damage while the lazors are active anyway...
Izaach Jul 25th 2010 9:24PM
I find it really ironic that tree druids are the most mobile healers. I mean seriously, they're TREES! I see them healing while jumping around in a fit of joy.
>.>
toddless Jul 26th 2010 8:30AM
tree & pally best combo ever known to WoTLK
and come Cata - they're completely screwing both over.
Danterius Jul 25th 2010 10:44PM
You're bashing Lay on Hands? I think of all the long cooldowns that are available to the 4 healing classes, LoH might be the best one, (although druids' Tranquility is also a great one if used wisely). True, the 15m, or 11m if specced into, CD is quite long, but that still means you can use it once per encounter. So basically, 1 time per encounter, you are able to instantly save someone's life, preferably casting it on the OT so the MT can also reap the benefits via Beacon. And, you can get some mana to boot from it if you glyph into it.