Holy Paladin
Holy Paladin — Healer
Reactive single-target healing with strong cooldowns and a hard-to-kill body.
Last updated 8/28/2026 by Guild guides
Overview
Holy Paladin heals in bursts rather than a steady stream. You have short-cooldown, high-throughput buttons and a beacon system that quietly duplicates a portion of your healing onto whoever needs it most. The spec is very good at keeping one or two people alive through heavy damage and less suited to topping a whole raid from low health.
How this spec operates
- Holy Power from
Holy Shock fuels 
Word of Glory and 
Light of Dawn — never cap it. 
Beacon of Light duplicates a portion of your healing — keep it on the active tank.- Holy Shock on cooldown is your best heal and generator — letting it drift is the biggest mistake.
- Burst healing, not steady throughput — excel at keeping one or two targets alive through spikes.
Avenging Wrath and 
Divine Toll are throughput cooldowns — line them with raid damage.
Strengths & weaknesses
- Exceptional burst healing on a single target
- Very durable, with strong personal defensives and an immunity
- Meaningful raid utility through Blessings
- Weak sustained raid-wide healing compared to other healers
- Mana can get tight on long fights with constant damage
- Limited mobility while casting
Damage while healing
Left to right — use the first ability that is ready. Detailed notes for each step are below.
- 1
Crusader Strike and 
Judgment on cooldown when healing is under control. - 2
Hammer of Wrath whenever it lights up. - 3
Consecration on packs you are standing in.
Holy Paladin damage is not a vanity metric — several talents convert your damage into healing, so pressing these keeps the group topped up as well as helping the kill.
What top logs actually run
Sampled from Warcraft Logs via Archon · updated 2026-08-27T12:00:00Z · 247826 parses