The Light and How to Swing It: Healing on the run

Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we discuss how paladins are basically healing siege tanks.

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.