Holy Paladins in PvP or: How I Learned to Stop Holy Shocking NPCs and Start Flash of Lighting the FC

Holy paladins in PvP is rift gold a concept that had a lot of people scratching their heads in past expansions, but Cataclysm brings with it a host of goodies that dramatically increase their usefulness. Here's how you can take those new abilities to improve your game.

Healing Abilities
Needless to to say, if you're a holy paladin in PvP and you're not healing, you're basically dead weight. Here are the abilities you have at your disposal:

- Holy Light
It is not very fast and not very powerful, but it is one important thing: inexpensive. Considering PvP's fast pace this ability normally wouldn't be viable, but thanks to the talent Infusion of Light, you have a chance to drastically decrease the time it takes to pull it off. I wouldn't use it unless IoL is active, though.

- Flash of Light
A very fast, moderately powerful heal, that costs a lot of mana. You'll be tempted to want to use it a lot (and for good reason) but you have to use discretion.

- Divine Light
Heals for an incredible amount, but takes a long time to process and takes a huge chunk out of your manapool. Again, as with Holy Light, Infusion of Light is a must-have when using this in PvP. I would suggest getting used to using Holy Light more often, though, whenever IoL procs. That said, don't be afraid to use this when you find yourself in a situation where you have to heal quickly and for a lot (for example, when you're healing a flag carrier).

- Holy Shock
An instant healing spell that's moderately powerful, and slightly expensive. Perhaps your best healing spell--not just because of the spell itself, but because the use of Holy Shock is what activates Infusion of Light, which will allow you to use HL/DL.

- Holy Radiance
Perhaps a Holy Paladin's only genuine AoE spell, heals everyone within 10 yards for a certain amount every second for ten seconds. Very useful, but very costly, sapping almost half your mana. Feel free to use it in battlegrounds, but I wouldn't touch it in arena unless as a last resort.

Talent Choices

You need to make sure that all the talents you put points into are for the express purpose of healing/cleansing/protecting yourself and your teammates.

What to use:

+ Aura Mastery

Very useful to prevent interrupts and silences, not only you but your group members as well.

+ Infusion of Light

Makes Holy Light/Divine Light viable in PvP.

+ Protector of the Innocent

Heal others and you receive a small heal yourself. Basically a passive version of Beacon of Light.

+ Beacon of Light

Heal other people and you get half of that heal on yourself as well. Lasts for five minutes. All holy paladins in PvP should make liberal use of this.

What NOT to use:

- Light of Dawn

Light of Dawn is an awesome PvE ability, but is near pointless in PvP (which is too bad since it is one of our only group heals). There's no way you'll ever have all your teammates close enough together to pull it off, and even if they were, damage is dished out faster and harder in PvP as to make the amount LoD heals for next to nothing.

- And... pretty much any talent that focuses on attacking other players.

Tune in next time, when I discuss possible strategies for Holy Paladins in both arena and battlegrounds!