Holy Paladin's Guide to healing Spells and Their Macro's

January 3, 2009

Holy Paladin Core Spells

A thing about Macro’s:

I’ve included Macro’s for most of the spells that you could want Macro’s for. Some spells are simply support spells, so no macro’s need be written for them. I’m not going to explain how macro’s work, there are plenty of other resources to help you with that.

A thing about the numbers here:

Some of these numbers look small to some of you who are already raiding. Remember, these numbers are for you being unbuffed. We will go through all your raid buffs in another area.

Flash of Light (Rank 9)

Spell: Flash of Light
Casting Cost: 307 Mana
Spell Power Coefficient: 1.26 (with 3 points in Healing Light Talent)

Flash of Light is a spell that every Holy Paladin will cast on a regular basis. It is extremely cheap, and in a proper raid environment, you should be able to cast this forever and still gain Mana.

Early on at level 80, its really easy to have this spell hit for 2200 Heals per cast and crits hitting for 3300.

It is a massive staple spell in the Holy Paladin’s arsenal. Couple this spell up with Beacon of Light and it has the potential to double your heals so long as you use it wisely.

Depending on your Spell Power, you can see for yourself how efficient Flash of Light is.

Flash of Light (Rank 9)		With 3 points in Healing Light Talent		Potential HPS when teamed with Beacon
+Spell Power	Heals Per Cast	HPS (Heals Per Second)	Heals Per Mana
1300	2473.5	1649	8.06	3298
1400	2599.5	1733	8.47	3466
1500	2725.5	1817	8.88	3634
1600	2851.5	1901	9.29	3802
1700	2977.5	1985	9.70	3970
1800	3103.5	2069	10.11	4138
1900	3229.5	2153	10.52	4306
2000	3355.5	2237	10.93	4474
2100	3481.5	2321	11.34	4642
2200	3607.5	2405	11.75	4810
2300	3733.5	2489	12.16	4978
2400	3859.5	2573	12.57	5146
2500	3985.5	2657	12.98	5314
2600	4111.5	2741	13.39	5482
2700	4237.5	2825	13.80	5650
2800	4363.5	2909	14.21	5818
2900	4489.5	2993	14.62	5986
3000	4615.5	3077	15.03	6154

Note the Potential HPS when teamed with Beacon. This effect is highly unlikely, which is why its potential. It should be noted that the Heals Per Mana almost double as well, but you need to take into consideration the casting cost of Beacon of Light.

See the Stats page for how each stat effects Flash of Light

Flash of Light Macro:

#showtooltip Flash of Light
/use [combat]13
/use [combat]14
/cast [target=mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][target=targettarget, help,nodead] Flash of Light
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

The biggest benefit of this macro is its versatility. If you're casting through a raid frame, it'll cast on the person you have under your mouse, if not it will cast on a friendly character that you have targeted. If not, if you are targeting an enemy, it will cast on its target (usually your tank).

If you don’t want to use your trinkets automatically, remove the /use [combat] 13 / 14 lines. If you’re like me and would never use the ability unless its programmed into your macro’s feel free to leave it in. Delete that line if you're not a herbalist.

Holy Light (Tank 13)

Spell: Holy Light
Casting Cost: 1274 Mana
Spell Power Coefficient: 2.17 (with 3 points in Healing Light talent)

This baby is your big gun! A lot of Holy Paladin’s are currently casting Holy Light more than Flash of Light. It takes a few specific Glyphs and a lot of work to get your gear up to the level where you can almost constantly cast Holy Light, but it can be done.

While Holy Light isn’t as efficient with its Mana as Flash of Light with its Heals Per Mana (HPM), it more than makes up for it being able to heal about twice as hard. The Heals Per Second (HPS) that Holt Light delivers can be exactly what you need to get out of a tight spot.

Holy Light (Rank 13)		With 3 points in Healing Light Talent		Potential HPS with Glyph of Holy Light
+Spell Power	Heals Per Cast	HPS (Heals Per Second)	Heals Per Mana
1300	7987	3195	6.27	4792
1400	8204	3282	6.44	4922
1500	8421	3368	6.61	5053
1600	8638	3455	6.78	5183
1700	8855	3542	6.95	5313
1800	9072	3629	7.12	5443
1900	9289	3716	7.29	5573
2000	9506	3802	7.46	5704
2100	9723	3889	7.63	5834
2200	9940	3976	7.80	5964
2300	10157	4063	7.97	6094
2400	10374	4150	8.14	6224
2500	10591	4236	8.31	6355
2600	10808	4323	8.48	6485
2700	11025	4410	8.65	6615
2800	11242	4497	8.82	6745
2900	11459	4584	8.99	6875
3000	11676	4670	9.16	7006

The Glyph of Holy Light gives Holy Light the potential HPS booms with a 50% increase. This is an incredible boost, increasing the Mana efficiency by about 33%.

Even though Holy Light is a slower casting spell, with enough haste (look under Stats on Haste to see the effects on Holy Light) you can quite easily be casting these with 1.5 or 1.7 second casting times.

Macro for Holy Light:

#showtooltip Holy Light
/cast [combat]Divine Illumination
/cast [combat]Divine Favor
/use [combat]13
/use [combat]14
/cast [combat] Lifeblood
/cast [target=mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][target=targettarget, help,nodead] Holy Light
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

This macro first casts Divine Illumination and Divine Favor before casting your Holy Light spell. All the other details are the same for the Flash of Light Macro.

Holy Shock (Rank 7)

Spell: Holy Shock
Casting Cost: 790 Mana
Range: 40 Yards for healing, 20 yards for Damge
Triggers the Global Cool Down: Yes
Cool Down: 6 Seconds
Spell Power Coefficient while Healing: 1.05 (with 3 points in Healing Light talent)

While this spell can be used as a damage spell, we are only going to look at it as a healing spell.

This spell is your mini “Oh Bugger” button. When things get tough and you need fast healing, Holy Shock is your answer. While Holy Shocks Heals Per Mana are poor, it makes up for it in other ways.

First: being an instant allows you to heal while moving, and heal in situations where you are getting interrupted.

Second: You get the heal when you click, not after a casting time, like most spells.

Third: It works in combination with the Talent Infusion of Light. This will either make the next Flash of Light an instant or reduce the casting time of Holy Light by 1.5 seconds.

+Spell Power	Heals Per Cast	Heals Per Mana	Heals Per Mana with 5 points in Benediction
1300	3865	4.89	5.44
1400	3970	5.03	5.58
1500	4075	5.16	5.73
1600	4180	5.29	5.88
1700	4285	5.42	6.03
1800	4390	5.56	6.17
1900	4495	5.69	6.32
2000	4600	5.82	6.47
2100	4705	5.96	6.62
2200	4810	6.09	6.77
2300	4915	6.22	6.91
2400	5020	6.35	7.06
2500	5125	6.49	7.21
2600	5230	6.62	7.36
2700	5335	6.75	7.50
2800	5440	6.89	7.65
2900	5545	7.02	7.80
3000	5650	7.15	7.95

Macro for Holy Shock:
/cast Divine Favor
/cast [target=mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][target=targettarget, help,nodead] Holy Shock
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Casts Divine Favor before casting Holy Shock. It works in the same order as Flash of Light.

In PVP, instant cast spells cannot be counter spelled or interrupted. This makes it very, very good.

Lay on Hands

Spell: Lay on Hands
Casting Cost: 0 Mana
Triggers the Global Cool Down: Yes

While Holy Shock may be the Holy Paladin’s little “Oh Bugger” spell, this is its big brother. The spell is quite easy to figure out but it has some not so known benefits besides the healing component.

First of all, this spell can crit. If it crits, it gives you a bonus 50% healing.

When you put points into the Improved Lay on Hands talent, will help doubly so on bosses that have hit their enrage. Not only will you have an free instant casting healing spell that hits for a massive amount, your target gets an armor bonus for 15 seconds. Not only that, if you have Glyph of Lay on Hands and Glyph of Divinity, you and your tank will receive 2340 Mana. Great if it’s a Protection Paladin.

Depending on how fast your guild is in clearing bosses, you may have this available for each boss fight. It should also be noted, that if you’re clearing through faster than that, its unlikely that you’re going to need to use Lay on Hands for anything but a Mana Pot (by doing it to yourself – You’ll get 2340 Mana times 2!)

Macro for Lay on Hands:

/stopcasting
/cast [target=mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][target=targettarget, help,nodead] Lay On Hands
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Why /stopcasting? If you’re casting this spell, its an emergency, therefore you need to stop what you’re casting and cast this.

For PVP, its not too bad. It’s a pity it cannot be used in Arena where you’d really want it.

Beacon of Light

Spell: Beacon of Light
Casting Cost: 1537
Triggers the Global Cool Down: Yes

This spell is both good and bad. It has so many Holy Paladins scratching their heads. This is also why Holy Paladin healing has become somewhat complicated. When used right, it has the potential to double your heals.

Spells and abilities that work with Beacon of Light:

Spell and abilities that do NOT work with Beacon of Light:

Judgement of Light
Proc’s from Glyph of Holy Light
Trinket Heals

Beacon of Light also only works with Effective Heals only. If you over heal a target, the over healed amount will not proc to the Beacon of Light.

Now’s a good time to bring up heal sniping. If you find that your heals are being sniped (someone heals your target just before your heal lands), Beacon of Light is going to be of little use to you.

There are two main tactics used with Beacon of Light.

Beacon the tank (or who else is going to take the most damage) and heal everyone else.
The other is to put Beacon on yourself and heal the tank and sometimes others.

In my personal history, putting Beacon on the tank is by far the best option. If you put Beacon on the tank, you can remove some of your focus from keeping the tank alive and concentrate on where the damage is.

If you Beacon yourself, you need to make some assumptions that are plain wrong. The healer, though being an important part of the group, is not the most important part. The tank is. Also, if the tank is doing their job right, they’re going to be the one taking the most damage anyway. Second assumption. You’re going to be taking enough damage to warrant all the extra healing going to you. If that’s happening, you need to rethink who your tank is. There needs to be a trust between you and your tank. You need to trust that your tank will hold agro, and your tank needs to trust that you’ll keep them up.

Beacon of Light is most effective in two situations:
1). When there is one person taking most of the damage and others taking lighter damage.
2). When there are two people taking about the same amount of damage.

In situation 1: Beacon who is going to take the most damage and heal the others.
In situation 2: Beacon one of them and heal the other. Heal the one that is going to take the steadiest stream of damage.

An excellent use of Mana which is also good get massive amounts of heals out (if you have Glyph of Holy Light) is to keep Beacon up on the tank, and Holy Light a melee that has a lot of damage on them. The heal hits the intended melee target, beacon proc’s sending heals to the tank and Glyph of Holy Light proc’s sending additional heals to the surrounding melee.

Tree of life (confirmation needed) is reported to work doubly well. Beacon Toon A, Heal Toon B. Toon B will get Heal+6%. Toon A will get (Heal+6%)+6%.

You can only have one Beacon of Light up at a time. If you cast another, it will dispel the first

Macro for using Beacon of Light:

#showtooltip Beacon of Light
/cast [target=mouseover,help][target=help,nodead][target=targettarget, help,nodead] Beacon of Light
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

If you use Bigwigs you can use it to give you a warning when it runs out. For this to happen add this to your macro.

/bwlcb 60 Recast Beacon of Light

For Deadly Boss Mods:

/dbm timer 60 Recast Beacon of Light

In PVP, you should beacon yourself and heal the other(s).

Divine Plea

Spell: Divine Plea
Casting Cost: 0 Mana
Triggers the Global Cool Down: Yes

At first glance this seems ordinary at best. Reducing your healing to get some Mana back. The truth is, this simple mechanic is so wonderful to a Holy Paladin some would call it divine.

Now imagine a spell that allows you to take a Mana Potion every minute. I present to you, your Mana Potion every minute, Divine Plea:

Maximum Mana	Mana returned per Divine Plea	Mp5 assuming Divine Plea is always on CD
10000	2500	208
11000	2750	229
12000	3000	250
13000	3250	271
14000	3500	292
15000	3750	313
16000	4000	333
17000	4250	354
18000	4500	375
19000	4750	396
20000	5000	417
21000	5250	438
22000	5500	458
23000	5750	479
24000	6000	500
25000	6250	521
26000	6500	542
27000	6750	563
28000	7000	583
29000	7250	604
30000	7500	625
31000	7750	646
32000	8000	667
33000	8250	688
34000	8500	708
35000	8750	729

Now the cost? Every minute, you reduce your heals by 50% for 15 seconds. That’s like sacrificing 25% of your heals to have a lot of extra mana.

But, I don’t want to reduce my healing!
Just relax, Holy Paladins over heal for heaps, so effectively all your doing is reducing your over heals. Not quite, but if it makes you feel better, think of it like that!

You don’t have to pop this spell every time it becomes available if you’re not having Mana issues, but if you run low on Mana on a particular boss, or your tank likes to chain pull like there’s no tomorrow, this is an exceptional option.

For those Holy Paladins who wish to cast Holy Light non-stop, casting this every time its available is essential.

Divine Favor

Spell: Divine Favor
Casting Cost: 131
Triggers the Global Cool Down: No

Divine Favor, and the talent Illumination and the fact it doesn’t trigger the Global Cool Down make this a winning combination.

This is what’s commonly referred to as a Spell Buff. It’s a spell that buffs other spells.

You should cast Divine Favor if it’s available, before you cast Holy Light or Holy Shock.

	Mana cost for both Divine Favor and this spell	Mana back from crit	Mana saving from using Divine Favor
Flash of Light (Rank 9)	425	184	66
Holy Light (Rank 13)	1392	764	647
Holy Shock (Rank 7)	829	474	356

The best Mana benefits come from only casting Divine Favor in combination with Holy Light, and if you need to relieve some of your Mana issues, this is a good way to do it.

If you want to set it up to go off with Holy Shock, that’s a good plan too, since when Holy Shock crits, your next Holy Light or Flash of Light casts faster. An emergency crit Holy Shock is always welcome.

Divine Favor also has the added benefit of forcing a crit, which also gives you 50% more heals.

Since this spell doesn’t trigger the Global Cool Down, make sure you put it in your macro’s. It’s really important to your healing performance that you do that.

Divine Illumination

Spell: Divine Illumination
Casting Cost: 0 Mana
Triggers the Global Cool Down: No

This is another powerful spell buff. As a matter of fact, I believe this is the best spell buff that a Holy Paladin has available.

What makes it so good? Well, a number of things.
1). Cheaper healing spells are always good.
2). The Talent: Illumination refunds are based on the base cost of the spell, irrelevant of how much you pay for it. If we have enough crit on our gear, we could in fact end up with more Mana at the end of the 15 seconds than we started with.
3). The Mana discount stacks with other Mana discounts.
4). The amount of haste on our gear lets us almost abuse this spell.

	Mana Saved Per Cast
Flash of Light (Rank 9)	154
Holy Light (Rank 13)	637
Holy Shock (Rank 7)	395
Beacon of Light	769

So as you can see here, the best Mana benefits come from casting this before you cast Beacon of Light or Holy Light. Since Holy Paladins tend to cast multiple Holy Light in a row, it just makes sense to save this one for when you cast Holy Light.

Using it with Beacon of Light is also another good option, especially if you follow Beacon up with a few Holy Lights.

Sacred Shield

Spell: Sacred Shield
Casting Cost: 527 Mana
Triggers the Global Cool Down: Yes
Spell Power Coefficient: 0.75 (Need Confirmation)

Summary: You got the right stuff! This New Kid on The Block is awesome. Keep it up on anyone going to take a lot of continual damage. Eg. Tanks. In PVP, keep it up, it rocks!

Good news:
Sacred Shield is the most mana efficient Healing style spell that a Holy Paladin has that doesn’t have a massive cool down. Even more so with 5 points in Benediction.
It scales with Spell Power.

Bad news:
For you healers that follow the healing meters, this spell does not improve your stats.
It does not stack on a single target. Not even from two separate Paladins.
It requires Holy Paladins to manage one more thing. It needs to be refreshed every 30 seconds, not before or after.
It’s slow to take effect.
It does not stack with Beacon of Light or scale with Crit.

Great news:
It can be applied to multiple targets.

How does it work?
Step 1: You cast the spell and it places a buff called “Sacred Shield” on your target. This buff will last for 30 seconds.
Step 2: The target takes some damage. It does not matter how much, but when the target takes damage, it triggers a proc, which places a damage prevention shield on your target, which is also called “Sacred Shield” for 6 seconds.
Step 3: Any damage done to the target (not including environmental damage, Eg Cooking Fire, Falling Damage) will be prevented up to how much that shield will prevent. The Sacred Shield prevention shield will last until its all used up or has gone for 6 seconds.
Step 4: While the Sacred Shield buff is still active, repeat from Step 2.

Example of Step 3:
Lets say you have 1400 spell damage, which means that 1550 will be prevented for each Sacred Shield prevention shield. You get hit for 500 damage, 500 damage is prevented and there is 1050 left on the shield. You get another hit for 500, 500 is prevented and there is 550 left. You take another 500, 500 prevented and 50 left. You get smacked again for 500, 50 is prevented and you take 450 damage and the Sacred Shield Prevention Shield fades away.

Here is the table on Sacred Shield:

Spell Power	Prevention Per Tick (5 Sec)	Prevention Per Cast	Prevention Per Mana	Prevention Per Mana with 5 Points in Benediction
1300	1475	7375	14.0	15.5
1400	1550	7750	14.7	16.3
1500	1625	8125	15.4	17.1
1600	1700	8500	16.1	17.9
1700	1775	8875	16.8	18.7
1800	1850	9250	17.6	19.5
1900	1925	9625	18.3	20.3
2000	2000	10000	19.0	21.1
2100	2075	10375	19.7	21.9
2200	2150	10750	20.4	22.7
2300	2225	11125	21.1	23.5
2400	2300	11500	21.8	24.2
2500	2375	11875	22.5	25.0
2600	2450	12250	23.2	25.8
2700	2525	12625	24.0	26.6
2800	2600	13000	24.7	27.4
2900	2675	13375	25.4	28.2
3000	2750	13750	26.1	29.0

Flash of Light Crit part:
While this 6 second Prevention Shield “Sacred Shield” is on the target, your Flash of Light spells will crit for an additional 50%. In PVE, you shouldn’t really care about the additional crit. If the target is taking enough damage to benefit from crit heals, then the shield has already been all used up. If the shield is staying around, all it’ll help you do is over heal. In PVP, it can be very strong.

The prevented damage stops effects like Retribution Aura from happening, since they’re not really hitting you.

This spell is a must use in PVP. Damage prevention is very strong. You’re able to prevent damage while feared or incapacitated. It’s especially powerful when playing against Warlocks and Shadow Priests that use Damage over Time spells or Death Knights that use Curses.

While this spell doesn’t directly benefit by Haste, it will reduce the Global Cool Down, so 675 Haste Rating with proper raid buffs/Judgement will allow you to cast your next spell (or another one of these) on one second, instead of 1.5 seconds.

This new spell is a winner. It’s actually a good thing for skillful and talented Holy Paladins that it doesn’t show up on the meters. It means that the average nub players will be ignoring it totally making you so much more special.

Avenging Wrath

Spell: Avenging Wrath
Casting Cost: 351 Mana
Triggers the Global Cool Down: Yes

This spell is relatively boring. It’s a spell buff that triggers the Global Cool Down, which means you cannot use it in Macro’s.

Some say its good to counter the effects of Divine Plea. I believe its best use is popping during a boss fight when enrage happens. It’s the time where you’re going to see the most benefit from increased healing.

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