Holy Paladin Healing Cooldowns
Recently I've noticed that I don't make near enough use of my
cooldowns while healing. Making good use of cooldowns is very
important to performing at the top of your game. If you're not using a
cooldown that gives you +20% haste for 15 seconds every 2 minutes, why
bother worrying about that extra +10 Haste you got from upgrading
gear?
Paladins have 6 major healing related cooldowns available to us. There
are also "Hand" spells that could help with healing, or preventing
damage as well. I'll go over both and hopefully give suggestions on
when and how to use them.
Cooldowns
Avenging Wrath
This is probably the most iconic paladin ability ( next to the bubble). "Wings", this provides 20% more damage and healing done for 20 seconds. This is on a 3 minutes ( 2 mins with talents) cooldown.
This can be used pretty often. Some people ( me included) tend to "save" it until healing gets intense. Unfortunately this means it doesn't get near the amount of use it should. I personally tend to try to save it so much that I end up rarely using it. That's 20% less
healing i'm doing every 2 minutes.
People have suggested that it should be macro'd to something like Holy Radiance or even Divine Light, the justification being that if you're casting either of those spells, then you'll probably be casting more in the near future. I partially agree, at least for my usage. I really only hit Holy Radiance when 1.) I need massive tank heals, 2.) Everyone is taking damage and I need to pile on the healing. Both of these situations would do well with Avenging
Wrath.
On the other hand, my usage of Divine Light is a bit different. I mainly use it when it would cost too much mana to do multiple Holy Lights or Flash of Lights. In fact with Cata-level health pools, Holy Light does almost nothing at this point. I may or may not be in a furious healing state.
Divine Favor
According to ElitistJerks, Divine Favor is actually more useful or powerful in many situations than Avenging Wrath. This adds 20% more haste and crit for 20 seconds ( +10 with the glyph) every 3 minutes.
With such a short cooldown, I would macro this with heals as well. Holy Radiance is a good candidate, for the same reasons as above. Plus since its basically a mobile HOT, more haste means more ticks and more crit means each tick has more chance to crit. I definitely need to make more use of this cooldown.
Aura Mastery
This is more of a damage prevention talent. "It will give you 6 seconds of "enhanced" auras every 2 minutes. 4076 extra armor, double damage retribution aura, silence and interrupt immunity, 195 extra fire/frost/shadow resistance or extra mount speed" - ElitistJerks thread. Personally I'd recommend the 195 resistance. This is a major boon on fights where you know that a boss is about to hit everyone for major damage. 6 seconds is just enough time to mitigate that one big hit.
Lay on Hands
This is the BIG heal on a LONG cooldown. It will heal the target equal to the max HP of the casting paladin. It will also return 10% of the heal to the paladin as mana. Note: If cast on yourself, it will trigger forberance. Cooldown is 10 minutes ( 7 with the glyph). Very useful for when the tank is going down, and you can't keep him up. This is instant "oh-shit" button. Gives you a bit of mana to boot. The cooldown is long enough that its one use per fight, probably saved for boss fights only.
Guardian of Ancient Kings
This spawns our newest tool, a angel looking pet. It will duplicate all heals done by the paladin. The heals go to the same target the paladin healed. It will also splash heal all targets within 10 yards for 10% of the amount healed. Lasts 30 seconds or after 5 heals. Cooldown is 5 minutes, 3 with prot talents, but that doesn't apply to us.
Some people like to macro this to Avenging Wrath, to power up the heals done by the Guardian. That seems like a good idea to me. I'd be hesitant trying to macro this to other, heals though. The cooldown is just long enough that I wouldn't want to "waste" it. Plus my usual "oh-shit" button Holy Radiance, isn't duplicated by the Guardian.
I personally macro'd this up with Avenging Wrath, and left it as them as something I can press when I need that extra oomph.
Divine Plea
When mana is as much of an issue as it is in Cataclysm, any kind of mana-regen abilities will be used. This ability returns 10% ( +5% with the glyph) of total mana over 15 seconds. Penalty is that it reduces healing by 50%. Cooldown is 2 minutes. Definitely useful for times when damage isn't so intense. But be careful, if you have to do more heals to make up for the healing penalty, then the 15% mana returned will do no good. With the cooldown at 2 minutes, its possible this could be used more than once in a boss fight.
I personally like to hit this in between fights on trash, instead of drinking. I also hit it at the movement portions of some fights (such as during Firestorm in Baradin Hold).
Divine Shield
I'm including this because, while it doesn't raise healing throughput, it reduces the number of players that need healing by one, the holy pally. This helps immensely when shiet hits the fan, so you're not worrying about running around, or getting interrupted because of damage.
Hands
Hands are very short term buffs than can go a long way towards making the target's life easier.
Hand of Sacrifice
Think of this as a bubble with teeth. When cast on a friendly it transfers 30% of all damage done TO the target to the paladin, up to 100% of the Paladin's HP. This lasts 12 seconds or until total damage transfered equals 100% of the paladin's HP. Cooldown is 2 minutes.
A good hand to use on a tank when a boss enrages. With the 100% limit, plus Tower of Radiance talent, as long as the healer is still healing other targets then the healer shouldn't have to worry about dying. This coupled with Divine Shield would mitigate the entire 30% damage.
Hand of Protection
This is the poor man's bubble. You bubble a team member. All damage is prevented, but they cannot attack or use physical abilities. 5 minute cooldown, causes forberance on the target.
This is useful if a DPS, or even another healer's health is dropping way too fast to get a big heal, or taking so much damage that a Holy Shock+WoG can't keep them alive. It also helps DPS that are standing in fire.
I've also used this to calm over-active DPS. If they pull aggro, you HoP them and the boss will go to the next person in line on their aggro table (hopefully is the tank). Hand of Salvation is really designed for this, but sometimes its not enough. Plus this has the added benefit that it cannot be ignored, and their DPS takes a nose-dive. This is bad in a DPS race type fight, but handy to wake up auto-piloting DPS.
Hand of Salvation
Reduces threat of the target by 2% every second for 10 seconds. So after 10 seconds, they've lost 20% of their threat, if they stopped attacking. This is useful if the DPS out-gears the tank and the tank is having trouble staying ahead of the DPS in aggro. 2 minute cooldown.
Hand of Freedom
More of a PVP talent, removes all snares and slowing spells on the target. Useful for the tank if they're having trouble moving. Also useful for dps who might be slowed or snared during movement heavy fights.
Hopefully this little run-through of our major cooldowns has helped someone out there. I've personally macro'd quite a few of the cooldowns to my "big" heals, Flash of Light and Divine Light. Reasoning being that if I'm casting either of those mana-intensive spells then major healing is probably called for. If not, the cooldowns are short enough that they'll come up again.
Even if I do end up wasting the cooldowns half the time, thats still 50% more usage I'm getting out of it than I normally would. Now off to try it out in some dungeons.
Cheers.
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